"The anger is immense": why many pharmacies will be closed this Saturday, August 16

Thousands of city pharmacies are likely to close their doors this Saturday, August 16. At the call of the Union of Pharmacists' Unions (Uspo), joined by several professional organizations, a massive pharmacy strike has been announced to protest the gradual reduction of commercial discounts granted by laboratories on generic drugs . "Nearly 90% of pharmacies will be closed on Saturday in certain departments, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in Côte-d'Or, in Saône-et-Loire, and even in Gers," warned Pierre-Olivier Variot, president of Uspo, on Tuesday, speaking to the local media Ici . "We are not on strike, we are just closed to think about what comes next, about possible closures, about future layoffs."

Anger rose a notch after the publication in the Official Journal on August 4 of the decree setting new ceilings for commercial discounts on generic drugs. Indeed, until August 31, 2025, pharmacies can benefit from discounts of up to 40% on generic drugs, granted by laboratories, which guaranteed them a significant margin on resale, then compensated by Social Security, which reimburses the drug at full price. From September 1, the threshold will be limited to 30% until June 2026, and it could drop to 20% in 2027.

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This reform is part of a government plan aimed at saving €1.7 billion on health spending by 2025, including €500 million targeted at the "medicines" category. The government intends to reduce spending while continuing to promote the use of generic drugs, which are less expensive than patented specialties.

But professionals fear the financial backlash of these budgetary restrictions. For pharmacies, these discounts represent an essential part of their commercial margin. "The savings on generics for the community pharmacist are not important, they are vital. You cannot announce out of the blue that your funding is being cut, it is not possible," Marc Sartorio, president of the Union of Community Pharmacists of Calvados, protested yesterday on Ici .

According to the unions, the decline in margins could lead to the closure of one in three pharmacies in France, or around 6,000. Small, local businesses, already weakened by rising costs and recruitment difficulties, would be the most exposed. "The pharmaceutical network will be weakened. The quality of care will suffer; there will no longer be the network that currently covers France perfectly," warns Marc Sartorio.

Since July 1, several unions, including the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France (FSPF), the National Union of Pharmacies of France (UNPF) and the USPO, have already called for an "indefinite strike of the guards" . Many pharmacies on duty have then decided to close their doors, including in areas where access to care is already strained. The inter-union plans to renew these occasional closures at the start of the school year, with a national day on September 18, then "every Saturday starting September 27" . "The decree has been published, the anger is immense, but our determination will not weaken" ,insists the USPO .