After months of crisis, which had paralyzed non-urgent policies, the French government finally passed its controversial 2026 budget on Tuesday, 27 January.
The budget crisis, which forced Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, against its inital wishes, to invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution three separate times to ram through fiscal plans without the necessary parliamentary votes, now appears to be nearing a resolution.
The budget resolution is a significant step forward for the upcoming medical cannabis industry in France. Since August 2025 the regulatory texts that govern France’s permanent legal framework are complete, validated, and only await ministerial approval. Health officials, however, have not been able to give them priority due to fiscal chaos.
Benjamin-Alexandre Jeanroy of Paris-based Augur Associates told reporters that the main blocker is budget negotiations which have been going on for a long time. MEDCAN24. After that, we should have around a mid-February deadline to complete the entire process.
Another distraction from politics has now been cleared. Health Minister Stéphanie Rist, who must sign the medical cannabis texts alongside the Minister of Economy, was simultaneously forced to campaign in a high-stakes by-election in Loiret after her deputy replacement refused to take her spot at the National Assemblé once she got nominated in the government.
Jeanroy described her as a factor that was attracting attention. She had won the election with 62.1%. “Some of those lingering cases can now hopefully be taken serious”, Jeanroy suggests.
Even though political delays are a concern, businesses continue to build dossiers
The industry is still unsure when the Bill will be published and signed in the Official Journal.
Nevertheless, the integration of medical cannabis into France’s current pharmaceutical framework has provided plenty of clarity as to what companies need to do in order to prepare, so they can get started right away.
Jeanroy says that even if you are unable to submit your dossier today, you still have time to prepare all the necessary documents. We know 99% of what will be required in the dossier, the format that they are asking for and all components needed.
This preparation involves two crucial steps. First, companies must secure an ‘exploitant pharmaceutique’ partner, a French pharmaceutical entity licensed to handle the regulatory filing, distribution, and pharmacovigilance required under France’s system.
There are only two things you have to do. First, you need to identify your partner who will exploit. “And that will determine a great deal of what you can or cannot do in-house, like the product registration which is step two.”
In the second step, you will need to assemble your pharmaceutical dossier. This is a file that includes all of your product information, including safety and stability.
“The process is a bit tough and pharmaceutical,” Aurélien Bernard, co-founder of industry publication Newsweed, told MEDCAN24. It’s expensive and requires a large number of documents.
Companies who have worked for the past year on their partnerships and dossiers, as the legislative texts languished in the political wilderness, will be able to gain a faster entry into the market once they are published. Jeanroy says that all companies who are working on this before the publication of the regulatory texts and opening the submission stage are benefiting.
We reported previously that insiders in the industry estimated it could take between eight and eleven months for products to reach pharmacy shelves following publication. Jeanroy, as well Bernard, believe this timeframe will be significantly shortened by the established framework.