Starting June 15, 2026, France will become the first country in the European Union to reimburse the costs of innovative weight-loss medications under its state healthcare program. The official announcement was made on television by the French Minister of Health, Stéphanie Rist.
According to the Minister, the baseline reimbursement rate for these medications is officially set at 65%. However, since the vast majority of patients suffer from severe comorbidities alongside obesity (such as arterial hypertension or diabetes mellitus), their funding will effectively be fully covered at 100%.
These completely new-generation drugs, such as Wegovy manufactured by the Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, belong to the class of GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) receptor agonists. They effectively promote weight loss by mimicking the action of an appetite-suppressing hormone in the body.
According to the latest data, approximately 70,000 patients in France have already been treated with Mounjaro. However, the high price—around €300 per month for injections—has until now posed a significant financial barrier both in France and worldwide.
Notably, this therapy has been available by prescription in the country since 2024, and since June 2025, the authority to prescribe the drug was extended to all general practitioners, moving beyond just narrow specialists. Despite this, they had not been reimbursed by the national health insurance system until now.
Statistical data clearly indicates the scale of the problem: according to the 2024 national epidemiological study, 18% of the French population (approximately 10 million people) suffer from obesity. Meanwhile, according to European Parliament data, 51% of the EU population over the age of 16 is overweight, and 17% live with a clinical diagnosis of obesity.
