An unprecedented quota of 30% of working time for aesthetic medicine procedures is on the table for French doctors, while 6.3 million French people do not have a GP. The idea: to recover medical time devoted to a booming sector, with nearly 2 million patients per year. This project, still under discussion, is already straining part of the profession.
According to Agence France-Presse, the Government
is preparing a draft decree which caps aesthetic medicine at “30% of working time” for any doctor, regardless of their mode of practice. The rest of the activity should be devoted to the specialty for which he is qualified. The Order of Physicians would be responsible for keeping a register of practitioners performing aesthetic procedures and the areas in which they are trained.
What the 30% aesthetic medicine decree would change in practices
The text would limit the time spent on injections, lasers and other procedures to 30%. aesthetic medicinethe remaining 70% having to go to routine care. Doctors who have already been 100% aesthetic for more than five years would have three years to reduce this share to 50%. Newcomers should first practice five years in their original specialty, then follow theoretical and practical training, the content of which will be fixed by decree, with possible validation of acquired knowledge.
Today, there is “no national register of aesthetic medicine practitioners”, recalls the Union of Aesthetic Medicine, which highlights the vagueness surrounding the offer. Tomorrow, the departmental councils of the Order should detail the areas practiced, from anti-aging aesthetics to hair growth or silhouette. The Government assures that it wants to bring doctors back into care, in a context where this very lucrative activity is not reimbursed by Health Insurance.
Dermatologists and unions stand up against the 30% quota
For the French Society of Dermatology, Cedef, FFFCEDV, FDVF and Uness-DV, this cap is a “display measure” which “gives the image of a Government (which) acts” by designating a “convenient culprit”. “Telling the French that dermatologists do too much aesthetics is lying to them“, criticizes Dr. Pierre Hamann. These organizations argue that dermatologists devote only 3% of their time to aesthetics and that 58% do not practice any.
Only 19 liberal dermatologists practice exclusively in aesthetics, or “less than 0.3% of the (total) activity of the specialty”, they detail, estimating that practitioners are “in no way responsible for the shortage”, “organized by public choices”. On BFM-RMC, dermatologist Marie-Estelle Roux, member of the SNDV, judges for her part that “Putting quotas seems lunar to us” and that the division between medical care and aesthetic repair of damage remains very difficult to trace on a daily basis.
Aesthetic medicine, medical time and risks of illegal abuse
Learned societies warn that this decree “will even produce the opposite effect to that sought, by pushing patients towards illegal injectors and technical platforms towards financial operators”. They emphasize that reports of illegal practice increased from 62 in 2022 to 213 in 2025. According to them, more than 9,000 doctors already practice aesthetics, while the Union of Aesthetic Medicine only lists around 300 practitioners exclusively dedicated to this sector.