We Thought the General Practitioner Shortage Was Caused by Retiring Baby Boomers — Latest Figures Reveal Something Even More Troubling

And what if everything you’ve been told about the shortage of general practitioners is partly false? Waves of retirements among baby boomers, and a numerus clausus that was too restrictive for decades—the explanations keep resurfacing whenever we talk about the difficulty in finding a GP. Yet the latest figures from DREES tell a very different, and significantly more troubling, story. France now has fewer general practitioners than at the start of the 1980s, even as the population has grown substantially since then. A paradox that deserves closer scrutiny, with numbers to back it up.

The Myth of Mass Retirements Does Not Stand Up to DREES Figures

As of January 1, 2025, the DREES counted 237,200 doctors in active practice in France, up 1.6% from the previous year. At first glance, nothing alarming. But this overall figure hides a much more contrasted reality by specialty. Between 2015 and 2025, the number of specialist doctors rose by 15%, while general practitioners declined by 2% nationally. In other words, the growth of the medical workforce benefits almost exclusively specialists, leaving general medicine out of this positive dynamic.

Thus, explaining the situation solely by retirements does not hold up. If aging of the profession plays a role, it does not explain why specialists manage to offset their own departures while general practitioners do not. General medicine comprised exactly 100,019 practitioners in activity in 2025, versus 101,935 in 2015. A slow but steady erosion, painting a deeper trend that is far more structural than a simple demographic aging effect.

Since 2010, the Curve Has Reversed: Fewer General Practitioners Than Forty Years Ago

This is where the numbers become truly telling. According to a parliamentary report based on DREES data, the number of liberal general practitioners has been in continuous decline since 2012, accompanied by a marked aging of the profession. This shift is not incidental: it means France reached a peak in GP numbers and then began a slow descent, to the point where today the totals are comparable to, or even lower than, those of the early 1980s.

A telling fact: this trajectory was not unforeseen. A DREES study from 2004 already projected a downward trend in GP numbers, though less pronounced than that forecast for certain specialties such as ophthalmology or psychiatry. In other words, warning signs have existed for more than twenty years, without public policy really reversing the trend.

The Numerus Clausus, the Obvious Culprit but a Poor Path

The numerus clausus is often singled out as the major culprit behind the current shortage. DREES projections for 2025–2030 indeed anticipated a decline of about 30% in the number of liberal general practitioners relative to the population, due to an insufficiently increased quota. But reducing the problem to this single variable would be misleading, because a significant portion of the observed decrease is actually explained by a different factor: the creation in 2017 of two entirely new specialties, emergency medicine and allergology, which used to be practiced by general practitioners.

Concretely, practitioners who previously operated under the banner of “general medicine” are today categorized differently in statistics, even though the actual number of patients they follow has not necessarily changed. The numerus clausus bears responsibility, but it is only one piece of the puzzle among others.

Medical Time, Feminization, Salaried Work: The Real Mechanics Behind the Decline

A historical demographic fact sheds light on part of the phenomenon: in 2025, women became the majority among doctors in France. This shift, long anticipated, marks a major demographic evolution within the medical profession. There are also changes in how doctors practice, which can alter the availability of general practitioners on the ground, independent of their raw numbers.

National medical density now stands at 346 doctors per 100,000 inhabitants in 2025, up from 341 in 2024. A real uptick, but clearly slower than the pace seen during the 1980s to 2000s, a period when the profession experienced continuous and sustained expansion.

Medical Deserts: When Shortages Reach Even the Cities Once Spared

Territorial disparities remain stark across the country. Some rural, peri-urban, or overseas areas continue to suffer from a chronic shortage of practitioners, despite efforts by regional health agencies and local authorities to attract new doctors. This phenomenon, once confined to the most isolated regions, continues to provoke tensions in areas previously less affected.

What These Numbers Really Reveal About the Future of General Practice

Ultimately, the ongoing decline in practicing general practitioners since 2010 outlines a phenomenon far more complex than a simple equation between the number of students trained and retirements. Reallocation into other specialties, sociological changes within the profession, different career choices: a host of mechanisms intertwine to produce this quiet but real retreat. A conclusion that invites policymakers to rethink levers of action beyond the mere numerus clausus, now replaced by a more flexible numerus apertus, in the hope of reversing the trend sustainably in the years to come.