In response to the epidemics, doctors have been requisitioned in the Bouches-du-Rhône region.

Faced with winter epidemics and during a holiday period for many healthcare workers, the Bouches-du-Rhône prefecture is requisitioning 17 general practitioners until the beginning of January, according to prefectural decrees.

Doctors practicing in towns near Marseille, including Martigues, La Ciotat and Aubagne, are being requisitioned between December 25 and January 4, on dates and times defined by three decrees signed on Monday.

Read moreSuperloaf, an ultra-processed product marketed as “healthy”.

The text explains that this decision was taken because "the persistence of an insufficient on-call schedule to ensure continuity of care (...) constitutes a serious risk to public health, resulting from the prolonged lack of response to requests for primary care."

Doctors who deviate from this decree risk prosecution.

When contacted by AFP, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur explained that it had chosen doctors "who were not exempt and who had not taken any on-call shifts in the coming year."

She pointed out that "the Bouches-du-Rhône department is the only department in metropolitan France where the shortages in outpatient care (PDSA) are greater than 50%".

In addition to "the combination of several factors with the resurgence of viral epidemics such as influenza and bronchiolitis, combined with the holiday period which involves the closure of some medical practices", the region experiences "a tourist influx" at the end of the year, the ARS also points out.

The region is entering its third week of the epidemic and "medical procedures performed by SOS Médecins as well as visits to the emergency room continue their sharp increase, at levels higher than those observed at the same time during the two previous seasons," according to the same source.

The previous week, influenza or flu-like symptoms caused "2,000 visits to emergency rooms recorded in the region, which led to nearly 450 hospitalizations."

As for bronchiolitis, for which the region has been in an epidemic phase for a month, "the activity of emergency services concerning children under one year old is stabilizing".

The ARS advises, during the end-of-year period, to call 15 to be directed either to a general practitioner or to the emergency room for the most serious situations.