I am a dual American-French citizen. I was born in the US, have never lived in France, and have never paid taxes in France (outside of VAT when visiting). I have natural-born French citizenship by descent.
If I got really sick and couldn’t/didn’t want to pay for the cost of coverage in the US, could I show up in France and be entitled to treatment? I have tried searching, but all the information I can come up with seems to be for expatriates of other nationalities living in France.
I looked at the Couverture Maladie Universelle , but you need to live for three months in France in order to get it automatically.
Since you are a French citizen, you may be entitled to suscribe to the French expatriate coverage. But IANAFrenchCoveragespecialist, and I don’t guartantee that it would work immediately.
Don’t know the specific answer, but EU countries generally provide healthcare on the basis of residence as well as citizenship.
EU nondiscrimination rules require, e.g., France to provide healthcare on the same basis to any EU citizen as it does to a French citizen. This obligation, couple with freedom of movement within the EU, would allow all EU citizens to go to France and seek treatment if France did not impose some kind of residence test. And the residence test would have to apply to French citizens on the same basis as other EU citizens. So, unless the French are exceptionally charitable, full entitlement to public healthcare will only be available to EU citizens resident in France.
That’s not to say that non-residents visiting France would receive no treatment. Accident and emergency treatment, for example, may well be available. EU citizens who participate in the social security systems of one of the EU member states who are travelling within the EU are recommended to carry an “EU health insurance card” which establishes their entitlement to accident and emergency treatment, treatment for chronic conditions, pregnancy care, etc, in the countries they visit on the same basis that local citizens receive this treatment. But, obviously, an EU citizen resident in the US wouldn’t benefit from this.
David Sedaris, an American writer, wrote an essay about visiting the doctor’s office in France. Technically, he was supposed to pay, but they didn’t seem to want to bother with sending him a bill.