France Assurance Maladie

France's system of compulsory health insurance, known as l'Assurance Maladie, established as part of the country's wider social security system created on October 19, 1945, on the founding principle of national solidarity, under which health coverage is funded by compulsory social contributions and co-administered by workers' and employers' organizations under state control. Universal coverage was extended gradually rather than all at once: statutory health insurance covered employees and retirees from 1945, was extended to self-employed people in 1966, and was finally extended to residents not covered by any occupational scheme through the creation of the Couverture Maladie Universelle in 2000, completing more than five decades of incremental expansion toward covering the whole population. The system remains organized around highly redistributive financial transfers between contributors, reflecting the same solidarity principle on which it was founded in 1945.