ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the central issue of poor relief, as there were no questions until the second half of the twentieth century of providing health care for the population. The sociologist Dominique Schnapper argues that the new rights made possible 'to pass from formal citizenship to real citizenship, to assure that individual citizens really exercise their rights', as the French revolutionary tradition of the sovereignty of the citizen required. Health is a precondition for self-development, maintaining it requires external assistance as well as the individual's own efforts. The proposals on national medical reform focused on assistance to the poor and the adumbrated a national health care system. The post-revolutionary France made little progress towards a national system of medical assistance for the poor, in the face of inadequate funding, resistance to centralized state control and limited support within the medical profession. The Third Republic finally revived the Revolution's vision of welfare and medical assistance at the national level.
