The innovation will also include free visits to a doctor in connection with contraception and will take effect on January 1
From next year, France will offer free contraceptive measures to all women under the age of 25, the health minister was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
The innovation will also include free visits to a doctor in connection with contraception and will take effect on January 1, Minister Olivier Veran said on France 2 television.
All methods of contraception are now free for girls up to the age of 18, and will now cover women up to the age of 25. In France, abortions are free, the AP notes.
Veran pointed out that young women now use fewer birth control pills than before and the main reason is financial.
It is unacceptable for women not to be able to protect themselves, not to be able to use contraception if they make such a choice, because it would be very expensive for them, the minister stressed.
The measure will cost the government about 21m euros a year, Veran said.
Several other European countries offer free or subsidized contraception. Contraceptive methods are free in the UK, for example, and in Spain the health system provides funding for 48 birth control methods, and those used in health centers are free.
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