Drug shortages, economic difficulties: pharmacists' unions call for strike on May 30

The tone is set by pharmacists. “The threats of deregulation are materializing, economic difficulties are intensifying, drug shortages are not improving, or are even deteriorating,” denounces the Union of Community Pharmacists’ Unions (USPO) in a press release published Friday. The group of unions is therefore calling for a “day of mobilization” on May 30 with the “closure of all pharmacies” in France. The USPO says it will “file strike notice accordingly.”

“We’re fed up, we’re being pushed around,” says Pierre-Olivier Variot, president of the USPO, to Le Figaro. At the heart of the tensions, the report by Renaissance MP Marc Ferracci which tends towards “a deregulation of pharmacy”, according to the representative of the profession. He points in particular to the project to sell medicines “on online platforms (such as Amazon)” and in “supermarkets”.

Also read “It’s both cool and dramatic”: in the back rooms of pharmacies, the production of medicines is intensifying

Added to this is “the entry of financial groups into pharmacies [...] which is not without interest”. “When banks refuse to lend to pharmacists, these groups offer to finance them but it is a disaster. We saw it in nursing homes or with medical biology,” criticizes Pierre-Olivier Variot. “It is no longer public health that decides but the financiers and that is becoming problematic,” warns the president of the USPO.

Concerning drug shortages, Pierre-Olivier Variot recognizes “the enormous work” that the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) has already carried out. But although this organization has focused on the supply of antibiotics, many drugs are still missing, such as “anti-cancer drugs” or “painkillers”.

By May 30, the USPO calls for “raising awareness among its interlocutors” with the presentation of petitions in pharmacies. A strike of on-call pharmacies is also planned for the Pentecost weekend, from May 18 to 20. And the discontent seems to be gaining ground, with unions having decided to mobilize jointly, particularly in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Corsica and Occitanie. “The FSPF and USPO unions of Lorraine, Drôme, Ardèche, Pas-de-Calais and the Nord have also chosen the union. Others are currently being negotiated,” details the press release from the union group.