The Difficult Integration of Complementary and Alternative Medicine into the French
Healthcare System: Between State Disinterest and Framing By Therapeutic and Sectarian Risks
We will first show how difficult it is for this regulation to constitute a lasting object of public action, and thus to give rise to initiatives that are sustained over time in France. We will link this difficulty to the lack of interest shown by an under-resourced health administration, and to a certain personalization of these initiatives, which are highly dependent on ministerial changes. With the example of the dereimboursement of homeopathy, we will nevertheless show the possible role of the media in triggering political action regarding the regulation of these practices.
We will then show that the integration of practices and practitioners within the French healthcare system is hampered by the state administration's attachment to the Evidence-Based Medicine paradigm. We will see, from the state's construction of the notion of risks associated with complementary and alternative medicine, that this paradigm appears to be a safety machinery associated with these practices. However, France stands out from other countries in framing these practices from a second perspective : the one of the sectarian risks, which makes sense in the context of a policy to fight against sects that is particularly well-developed.
We will show, however, that interpretative framing from the perspective of risk does not lead to a repressive policy towards complementary and alternative medicine. In fact, state action is more concerned with providing information to patients, in line with governmentality of conduct. Unwilling to integrate these practices into the healthcare system, the French state does not seek to prohibit them either, preferring to adopt a laissez-faire approach.