The government “will not retreat” in the new agreement governing the transport of patients causing the wrath of taxis and launched “a call to calm” on the eve of a meeting in the Ministry of Transportation.
“We are not going to go back. It is about doing between 100 and 150 million savings of 6,300 million. Therefore, 2% savings on efficiency will be made, not in the disease service,” Sophie Primas Government spokesman on BFMTV/RMC said Friday.
Taxis intervention began a mass mobilization on Monday to protest a new price of health insurance prices in the transport of patients by approved taxi drivers.
“Development in less dense areas”
The objective is to control the growth of health transportation spending, which reached 6.74 billion euros in 2024, including 3.07 billion for approved taxis (with a 45% jump since 2019). But these trips to hospitals or medical offices represent the majority of the billing of many drivers, especially in small cities.
“Future decreases in the income of taxi companies, often in debt, alive disorder in particular in less dense areas where the activity depends on the transport of patients,” he denounced the taxi federations in a letter to Prime Minister François Bayrou that will open the meeting on Saturday.
In an interview with El Parisino, Thomas Fatôme, the general director of Health Insurance, meanwhile, said that “the vast majority of taxis will win with this new model, because it is based on a logic to transport more patients.”
“A call to calm”
Another topic of conflict, competition with transport drivers with the driver (VTC) accused of not respecting the law that forbids Mard at stations and airports.
Incidents have intervened in recent days. The general director of Uber France Laurelline Seryeis denounced in RMC the search for VTC drivers for a “militia” of taxis in île-de-france.
In BFMTV, Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot launched “a call to calm” because “the police have more to do in my country than to spend days and nights with taxis.”
Source: BFM TV
