Healing foreigners in France: The State and the civil society organisations from the 80s to the 90s
Caroline Izambert
Caroline Izambert defended, at the EHESS, her PhD thesis focusing on the foreigners’ access to healthcare in France. Its title: “Healing foreigners?” The State and the civil society organisations for the health coverage of the poor and foreigners in France from the 1980s to the present day. In this work, she undertakes a history of social protection for foreigners and the role held by civil society organisations in its evolution. She is particularly interested in MSF and MDM who, since the second half of the 1980s set up healthcare centers in place in Paris and elsewhere in France in order to treat “the new poor”. She consulted the organizations’ archives and led numerous interviews with key actors of this little-known history.
This debate-conference was the occasion to dive into MSF’s “Mission France” of the 1980s and 1990s, and the debates, first and foremost internal, on the role and limits of the association in the medico-social domain. Relationship with the State and partner organizations, mobilization of figures and narratives to “make proof”, or even the inherent impossibility to untangle the personal background of the actors of this history with the projects they carry, these questions resonate with more recent experiences and debates within our organization, most notably in the context of projects aimed at caring for migrants.
To cite this content :
Caroline Izambert, “Healing foreigners in France: The State and the civil society organisations from the 80s to the 90s ”, 17 décembre 2018, URL : https://msf-crash.org/en/conferences-debates/healing-foreigners-france-state-and-civil-society-organisations-80s-90s
If you want to criticize or develop this content, you can find us on twitter or directly on our site.
ContributePast events
MSF and Humanitarian Negotiations for Access in the DRC
06/28/2022 - 04:30 PM 06:30 PMConference and debate, June 28th, 2022, from 18:30 to 20:30 (Paris time), MSF (salle du premier, 14-34 avenue Jean Jaurès, 75019 Paris). The conference was livestreamed and translated simultaneously to English.
All Who Fall
05/17/2022 - 04:30 PM 06:30 PMConference and debate, May 17th, 2022, from 18:30 to 20:30 (Paris time), MSF (14-34 avenue Jean Jaurès, 75019 Paris). The conference was livestreamed and translated simultaneously to English.
How to improve access to care and aid for people living with a handicap in a humanitarian context?
04/07/2022 - 04:30 PM 06:30 PMA screening of the film "Agir contre l’exclusion" followed by a debate, April 7th, 2022, from 18:30 to 20:30, MSF and online. The debate was translated simultaneously into sign language and English.
Reconstructing Lives
02/17/2022 - 05:30 PM 07:30 PMThe members of the Crash team were happy to welcome you all to an online conference-debate with anthropologist Vanja Kovačič, on Thursday 17th of February, at 6:30PM. The conference was in English and simultaneously translated into French. The author introduced her recently-published book "Reconstructing lives Victims of war in the Middle East and Médecins Sans Frontières" (Manchester University Press, translated in French and Arabic.)
Another approach to well-being at work
12/09/2021 - 05:30 PM 07:30 PMThe members of the Crash were very happy to welcome you all to this new conference-debate with occupational psychologists Yves Clot and Jean-Yves Bonnefond, two of the authors of “Le prix du travail bien fait – La coopération conflictuelle dans les organisations” (Paris, La Découverte, 2021 ; co-written with Antoine Bonnemain and Mylène Zittoun).
Book launch event - Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie
11/17/2021 - 05:30 PM 07:30 PMWe were very happy to welcome two authors of the book: sociologist (CNRS) and Crash scientific committee member Claudine Vidal, and Jean-Hervé Bradol, doctor, former President of the French section of MSF and current director studies at the Crash, for the launching event of the newly-published book “Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie” (Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris 2021). The event was hosted by Rony Brauman.