PADHUE: authorisation to practise, the EVC and provisional practice

What the word covers, and the ordinary route

The administration writes « praticiens à diplôme hors Union européenne ». The acronym PADHUE covers four professions: physician, dental surgeon, midwife and pharmacist.

The ordinary route to practising in France runs through the knowledge verification examinations, then a skills consolidation pathway, then the authorisation commission which rules on the application.

The Centre national de gestion assigns successful candidates to that consolidation pathway: two years of paid hospital duties as an associate practitioner for most professions, one year for midwives and dental surgeons. The authorisation application may be filed two months before the pathway ends.

What changed: two decrees of 28 May 2025

Decree no. 2025-467 of 28 May 2025 carries various provisions on practitioners holding a qualification obtained outside the European Union. Decree no. 2025-468 of the same day reshapes the procedure of the knowledge verification examinations. Both were published in the Journal officiel of 29 May 2025 and came into force the day after publication.

They are taken for the application of articles 35 and 36 of law no. 2023-1268 of 27 December 2023 on improving access to care through the territorial commitment of professionals.

Their main effect is to create an internal route to the examination, alongside the external route that until then stood alone, and to allow the consolidation pathway to be adjusted.

Who falls under the internal route

Article D. 4111-1 of the public health code, in the version in force since 30 May 2025, distinguishes the two access routes.

The external route is open to any candidate holding a qualification that permits practice of the profession in the state which awarded it.

The internal route requires the same qualification condition plus one of three situations: holding the attestation permitting provisional practice of article L. 4111-2-1 and practising in France; showing at least two years' full-time equivalent over the three preceding years in the profession on French territory; or being authorised under article L. 4131-5 in the territories the text lists.

What the 2026 session shows

The order of 12 June 2026 opened the examinations for the 2026 session. Registrations were taken on the Centre national de gestion's site, from Wednesday 17 June 2026 at 2 p.m. to Thursday 16 July 2026 at 5 p.m., Paris time.

How the posts were split between the two routes is the figure the regional pages do not give: 1,003 posts opened under the external route, 3,060 posts under the internal one.

The gap is not only one of volume. The external route was opened to physicians alone, in twelve specialties. The internal route was opened to physicians, pharmacists, dental surgeons and midwives.

The attestation permitting provisional practice

The regional pages call it « AEP ». The public health code calls it an attestation permettant un exercice provisoire, at article L. 4111-2-1 for the medical professions and article L. 4221-12-1 for pharmacists. It is the same thing, and the code's name is the one the texts use.

It is issued after the opinion of a commission which includes health professionals, to practise in a public establishment or a private non-profit health, social or medico-social establishment. The applicant must be practising the profession, establish their professional experience by any means, have a level of French sufficient to carry out their activity in France, and undertake to sit the knowledge verification examinations.

Article L. 4111-2-1 sets its duration: the validity of the attestation, renewable once, may not exceed thirteen months.

Renewal, at article R. 4111-13-8-11, requires either failure at the examinations or an overriding reason for not attending, together with an undertaking to sit the next session. The request is sent by the employing establishment to the director general of the regional health agency at least three months before the attestation expires, except where it expires less than a month after the results are published. Silence for two months counts as acceptance.

A second, derogatory scheme, which stops on 31 December 2026

There is a third name, and it is the one that causes the most confusion: the temporary practice attestation.

Instruction no. DGOS/RH2/2025/107 of 30 July 2025, published in the Bulletin officiel Santé on 31 July 2025, organises derogatory and temporary provisions allowing the regional health agencies to authorise certain foreign practitioners of the medical and pharmacy professions to practise. The durations it sets are not those of the code's attestation: a maximum of one year in one case, six months in the others.

That scheme is bounded in time: it stops on 31 December 2026. A temporary practice attestation and an attestation permitting provisional practice are therefore neither the same instrument, nor the same duration, nor the same legal basis — and only one of the two carries an end date.

What this page does not do

It does not replace the official texts and is not personalised advice. It describes neither the documents to supply nor the regional filing calendar, which are matters for the regional health agencies and the Centre national de gestion. The links below lead to the sources.