France's Health Minister Stéphanie Rist announced on Tuesday that the government would fast-track access to mental health appointments for young people. She promised that those identified by staff in the national education system as having mental health problems would be seen by a professional within 24 to 48 hours.
If a school doctor, nurse or psychologist identifies a student in distress, with a risk of self-harm or harm to others, "they will be able to contact local healthcare professionals to arrange an appointment within 48 hours," Stéphanie Rist told public broadcaster Franceinfo on Tuesday.
In cases where a teacher or head teacher identifies the situation and there are no healthcare professionals at the school, "a coordination system will be in place among healthcare professionals in the area" to "free up slots for emergencies," she explained.
Some healthcare professionals are lamenting the lack of beds in psychiatric facilities.
"There are more and more serious situations involving grave incidents, but fewer and fewer school doctors," said Jocelyne Grousset, co-secretary of the SNMSU-UNSA school doctors' union, warning AFP of the risk of "overburdening" doctors with poorly directed referrals.
Rist said she was aware of the pressures on the healthcare system, "but when we identify psychiatric disorders earlier, we avoid hospitalisations. So we have to make this shift," she said.
Hospitalisations for attempted suicide among girls aged 10 to 14 in France have risen by more than 100 percent since the Covid pandemic, according to government figures.
"We have doubled the number of psychologists since 2020 and increased the number of trained psychiatrists by almost 10 percent.
"In 2020, there were three clinical heads in child psychiatry; we now have 50 trained, and we are of course continuing to grow that number," Rist said, adding that resources would be in place to meet demand.
Access to healthcare remains difficult in France. Child and adolescent psychiatry has lost a third of its staff over the past decade, while nearly eight in ten young people face mental health challenges and encounter obstacles to treatment: interminable waiting times and difficulty obtaining an appointment.
An end to physical restraints
Rist also announced her intention to end the physical restraint of patients in psychiatric facilities by 2030.
"Restraints are traumatic for families and traumatic for patients themselves, particularly young patients. I am announcing today… we must move towards zero restraints by 2030," she declared.
"Already, one in ten facilities in France has committed to this zero-restraint policy, whether in Marseille, Bordeaux or Lyon. There are countries, such as Norway and Spain, that have reduced their use of restraint by more than 90 percent," the minister noted.
It would require "an appropriate number of professionals, suitable facilities" and "training for the entire team," so "obviously, it won't happen overnight," she added.
She said it was important to guarantee "human dignity," as restraint can subsequently lead to "even more serious" mental health problems.
At the end of May, a group of elected officials published an opinion piece in the daily Le Monde expressing frustration at the lack of progress on mental health. Among the signatories were former prime minister Michel Barnier, former health ministers and healthcare workers, who lamented a "lack of visibility on the implementation of concrete actions."
Psychiatrist Rachel Bocher, a co-signatory of the piece, told AFP that "we're talking about mental health much more, and better — but that's not enough: words alone won't cure the ills."
Rist will set out these announcements on Tuesday afternoon alongside Education Minister Édouard Geffray at an inter-ministerial meeting intended to take stock of the "major national cause" launched in 2025 around mental health.
