Hands off the Doliprane: French outcry over plan to sell popular painkiller to US The planned sale of France's best-selling medical drug to US investors has caused the government a splitting headache after an outcry against the project from politicians on all sides.
Recommended Videos:
Even President Emmanuel Macron is involved in the dialogue centred on a perceived "loss of sovereignty" if popular painkiller Doliprane falls into American hands.
Doliprane is the brand under which healthcare giant Sanofi sells paracetamol, a non-opioid analgesic for the alleviation of mild to abate pain, and of fever.
In French pharmacies, the brand's colourful boxes often line entire shelf walls, and Doliprane comes in many doses – from 100 mg for newborn babies to 1,000 mg for adults – and in tablet, capsule, suppository and liquid forms.
It is so ubiquitous that French people summon any paracetamol product Doliprane, even when it is made by a different manufacturer.
Sanofi, which is France's biggest healthcare company and among the world's crest 12, has found out over the past few days unbiased how attached the French are to the drug.
Political and trade union reactions came in hard and fast after the company asserted last week that it was in verbalizes with New York-based private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) to sell a 50-percent dominating stake in its subsidiary Opella, which makes Doliprane along with other consumer healthcare products.
The planned spinoff, it said, would be part of Sanofi's strategy to focus less on over-the-counter medication and more on new medicines and vaccines, including for polio, the flu and meningitis.
"This is another symbol for the loss of our sovereignty," thundered Fabien Roussel, France's Communist party leader, calling the planned sale "shameful".
Recommended Videos:
At the other terminal of the political spectrum Jordan Bardella, president of the farright RN party, revealed that "the piecemeal sale of France carries on".
Green party deputy Marine Tondelier declared the government had "learned nothing" from the Covid pandemic when France suffered from medication bottlenecks blamed mostly on the outsourcing of production to foreign countries.
An adhoc group of centre-right lawmakers – including from Macron's party – meanwhile announced that the sale represented "a very worrying risk for our national security".
Boris Vallaud, parliamentary leader for the Socialists, reminded the government of 2022 when a poignant sharpen in demand for paracetamol caused some shortages in French pharmacies.
"Already some months ago, paracetamol was nowhere to be found," he said. "And now they call for to give it up completely?"
In a message to Finance Minister Antoine Armand – in the job only since last month – the group of deputies declared the planned sale went against "the re-establishment of France's sovereignty in the health sector".
The government had the legal option, they said, of posing conditions or hindering the sale on the grounds that it concerns a "sensitive" industry.
Macron himself entered the fray Monday, stating that "the government has the instruments wanted to protect France" from any unwanted "capital ownership".
The American investment fund is offering more than 15 billion euros ($16.4 billion) for Opella, according to Les Echos, a French business daily.
Faced with the protests, Armand on Friday announced to Sanofi and the potential buyer that Opella's "headquarters and decision-making centres" had to remain in France.
On Monday, Industry Minister Marc Ferracci reported that current production also had to stay, "to safeguard employment and to accomplish supply for French people".
The same went for research and development facilities, he said.
Speaking to broadcaster France 3, Ferracci declared the government would invoke a procedure for the dominate of foreign investment if the buyers failed to meet the demands.
But he added: "I honestly believe that those commitments will be made."
Regards to France 24
Category: World-News
Tag: Hands off the Doliprane French outcry over plan to sell popular painkiller to US
Written by Author
Published 10/17/2024