Drug cutbacks sicken France

By Caroline Wyatt BBC correspondent in Paris

Some would say many French maladies are mere over-indulgence

It is a sad day for patients in France, as government cutbacks to prescription drugs come into effect.

The French health minister is publishing a list of hundreds of drugs which will no longer be available on the French national health service as they have little or no recognised effect.

It is an attempt to stem this year's looming 10 billion euro (£6bn) deficit in the health budget.

The measure has appalled many in France, the nation which produced Moliere's Le Malade Imaginaire - or The Hypochondriac.

Over-indulgence?

Ranked best national health service in Europe by the World Health Organisation, France also leads the world in popping pills.

The French take three times as many prescription drugs as the British or the Germans, and twice as many as the Italians.

But that may soon change.

The government's plan to is cut the nation's reliance on pharmaceuticals so the cost of around 600 commonly-prescribed drugs considered to be of little medical value will no longer be reimbursed.

That includes such Gallic specialities as tonics for the circulation, plant-based remedies and medicaments for the long-suffering French liver.

La crise de foie, or liver crisis, is a common ailment, and French pharmacies stock a mass of remedies for what some nations might describe as over-indulgence.

But from now on, the French will have to reach deep into their own pockets for the cure.