How to Study Medicine in France: A Guide for International Students

It is 7:40 on a grey October morning in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, and the lecture theatre at the Pitié-Salpêtrière faculty is already three-quarters full. These are PASS students — first-year medicine hopefuls — and the room holds maybe four hundred of them, laptops open, energy drinks lined up like ammunition. By June, fewer than a third of this room will hold a place in the second year. A few seats along, a student from Casablanca who finished her baccalauréat with honours is annotating a biochemistry slide in French she has been speaking fluently for two years. Behind her, a Polish student who came in through Parcoursup, paid €175 in tuition for the whole year, and is wondering whether she should have picked the L.AS route instead. This is where becoming a French doctor begins: not in a hospital, but in a packed amphitheatre, learning that the hardest part of medicine in France is getting past the first year.

Here is the bottom line. You can train as a doctor in France for roughly €175 a year in public tuition — the same statutory health-track fee a French student pays — and walk out, nine to eleven years later, with an EU-recognised medical degree that lets you practise anywhere in the European Union (service-public.fr). The catch is twofold and non-negotiable: the entire course is taught in French, and the first year is a brutal selection filter. France abolished the old PACES numerus clausus in 2020 and replaced it with two entry routes, PASS and L.AS, governed by a locally set numerus apertus (Ministère de la Santé). For international students who can operate in French and survive that first-year squeeze, France offers one of the cheapest serious medical educations on Earth, attached to some of Europe’s largest teaching hospitals.

This guide is the field-specific companion to our complete guide to studying in France. It covers what is unique about medicine: how the PASS/L.AS system actually works, how long the path runs and what each cycle contains, which faculties and university hospitals matter, the real costs, the language reality, how EU and non-EU applicants get in, and what a French MD is worth when you take it abroad. If you are weighing France against other affordable medical destinations, read it alongside our guides to studying medicine in Italy via the IMAT and studying medicine in Greece.

Studying Medicine in France, Key Data 2025/2026

Source: service-public.fr (tuition, degree recognition); Ministère de la Santé / Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur (PASS/L.AS reform); Campus France. Figures are 2025/26; verify the exact health-track fee on your faculty’s page.

Why study medicine in France?

Most international students who land on France for medicine arrive by elimination. They have looked at £200,000+ for UK clinical medicine, at the US route where international students are all but locked out of MD programmes, at the lottery of private European schools charging €15,000–€25,000 a year, and then they find a system where a public medical faculty charges less for a year than a UK university charges for a week. The value is genuine, and it is not a trick — but it comes wrapped in conditions that disqualify a lot of applicants, so be honest with yourself early.

The first draw is cost. A French public medical faculty charges the statutory health-track tuition: about €175/year for the first cycles and €243/year for the master’s-equivalent years, identical for French and EU students, plus the compulsory ~€103 CVEC student-life contribution. Non-EU students pay institutional fees of about €2,850–€3,879/year — still an order of magnitude below the £37,000–£60,000+ a UK university charges international students for clinical medicine. Over six pre-internship years, an EU student’s entire tuition bill is roughly €1,100 total. That is not a typo.

The second draw is the teaching hospitals. French medical training is welded to the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) system, and from the second cycle you are on the wards as a externe (clinical clerk) with real patient contact and a small salary. Paris faculties feed into the AP-HP (Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris), the largest hospital group in Europe with 39 hospitals; Lyon, Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg each anchor major regional CHUs. You do not learn French medicine from a textbook alone — you learn it taking blood and writing observations on a real ward.

The third draw is EU recognition and demand. The French diplôme d’État de docteur en médecine is recognised automatically across the EU/EEA, and France itself is short of doctors — the reason the government raised second-year places by roughly 15% when it scrapped the numerus clausus. A qualified doctor in France has a near-guaranteed job and a clear path to the Passeport Talent residence permit and, for non-EU graduates, long-term settlement.

Against all that, hold one hard fact: France teaches medicine in French, and only in French. There is no English-taught MD. If you cannot see yourself studying anatomy and then interviewing patients in French within two years, France is the wrong country for your medical degree, and Italy’s IMAT route or a Central European English-taught programme will suit you far better.

How French medical school works — PASS, L.AS and the three cycles

The single most important thing to understand is that France redesigned its entire medical entry system in 2020, and most older guides online still describe the dead one. Forget PACES. Here is the live system.

The first year: PASS or L.AS

Since the 2020/21 intake, there are two ways into the second year of medicine, and you choose one:

• PASS (Parcours d’Accès Spécifique Santé) — a health-focused first year. The bulk of your courses are biomedical (anatomy, biochemistry, biophysics, cell biology), but you must also take a mineure (minor) in another discipline — law, biology, psychology, mathematics — so that if you fail to progress to year two, you can continue into that subject’s bachelor’s rather than losing the year entirely.
• L.AS (Licence Accès Santé) — a normal bachelor’s degree (in biology, chemistry, law, STAPS sport science, even humanities) with a health option bolted on. You spend most of your time on the main degree and a slice on health modules.

At the end of the year, students are ranked, and a locally set quota — the numerus apertus, decided by each university with its regional health agency (ARS) — determines how many advance into the second year of medicine (or dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, MMOP). The big change from the old PACES is that the national cap is gone: each faculty sets its own number, and the totals rose about 15% nationally to fight doctor shortages. The hard limit that survived: you get at most two attempts at second-year entry across both routes. Fail twice and you cannot reapply through PASS/L.AS.

The three cycles after first year

Once through, French medicine runs in three cycles:

1. Premier cycle — DFGSM (Diplôme de Formation Générale en Sciences Médicales): the general-sciences phase, three years including the selection year. Foundations, semiology, first ward contact.
2. Deuxième cycle — DFASM (Diplôme de Formation Approfondie en Sciences Médicales): three years as an externe, rotating through hospital departments with a salary, building toward the national ranking exam. This cycle ends with the EDN (Épreuves Dématérialisées Nationales), the reformed successor to the old ECN, which ranks every student in France.
3. Troisième cycle — l’internat: your EDN rank and your choices decide your specialty and your city. General medicine takes three years; specialties such as cardiology, radiology or psychiatry take four to five; surgery five to six. You qualify with the diplôme d’État de docteur en médecine plus a DES (Diplôme d’Études Spécialisées) in your chosen field.

Add it up and the path is nine years for a GP, eleven or more for a surgeon — comparable to the US and UK, but at a fraction of the tuition. The defining French feature is that the second-cycle ranking exam, not a separate application, allocates both your specialty and your training city.

Top French universities for medicine — where to train

France has around 35 medical faculties, every one of them public and every one teaching to the same national curriculum and the same EDN exam. That makes “ranking” them misleading — the meaningful differences are the attached university hospital (CHU), the research depth, and the city you want to spend a decade in. The table below curates the faculties international students ask about most, each linked to its College Council profile. Treat the numbering as a reading order, not a league table.

Two practical points before you shortlist. First, the CHU matters more than the brand. Because every faculty sits the same national EDN exam, your clinical exposure is shaped by the size and case-mix of the attached hospital, not by any league position. Paris (AP-HP) and Lyon (Hospices Civils) are the two giants; Marseille, Lille, Strasbourg, Bordeaux and Toulouse anchor major regional CHUs. Second, your city is part of the decision — you will live there for the better part of a decade, and the EDN match can later move you elsewhere for the internship, so weigh quality of life, cost and the strength of the specialty you want. Browse every French faculty, its programmes and its location in our universities Atlas.

Can you study medicine in France in English? The honest answer

No, and this is the question that decides whether France is right for you, so do not let any agency tell you otherwise. The French medical doctorate is taught entirely in French, from the PASS amphitheatre to the hospital ward. Unlike Italy, which runs a parallel English-taught MD admitted through the IMAT exam, or several Central European faculties built specifically for international fee-payers, France has no English-medium MD at any of its ~35 public faculties.

What is available in English is the layer around the clinical degree:

• Biomedical and life-sciences master’s and PhD programmes at Sorbonne, Université Paris Cité, Paris-Saclay and others — neuroscience, immunology, public health, bioinformatics — many fully English-taught and aimed at research careers.
• Research electives and exchange semesters for students already enrolled in medicine elsewhere.
• Global-health and public-health master’s that pair well with a clinical degree but are not themselves a route to a French medical licence.

For entry to the actual MD you need certified French — B2 (TCF, DELF or DALF) to enrol, but realistically C1 to survive, because from the second cycle you are taking patient histories, presenting cases on rounds and writing clinical notes in French. Plan a year of intensive French before you apply if you are not already there. The TOEFL or IELTS you prepared for English-speaking destinations will not help you here; this is a French-language commitment from day one.

Admissions — how EU and non-EU students get in

French medical admission splits cleanly by nationality, exactly as the parent France guide describes for higher education generally. Medicine adds science and language requirements on top.

EU/EEA students — Parcoursup. If you hold an EU passport, you apply through Parcoursup, the national undergraduate platform, on the same terms as French applicants — no visa, full work rights. You list PASS and/or L.AS choices among your vœux; the platform opens mid-January, the wishlist closes in March, and results arrive from late May. Medical faculties weigh your science marks heavily: strong grades in biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics on your school-leaving diploma (matura, A-levels, IB, Abitur) are effectively required, and you must supply certified French at B2+.

Non-EU students — Études en France. Candidates from over 65 countries apply through the Études en France procedure run by Campus France in their home country, which bundles admission with VLS-TS visa pre-clearance. You build a file, upload diplomas and transcripts, prove French level, and attend a pedagogical interview. Be realistic: first-year (PASS/L.AS) international places are limited, and many non-EU students instead enter France at master’s level in biomedical science, or transfer in after starting medicine elsewhere, because direct first-year admission is fiercely competitive.

What faculties actually want. A science-heavy school record at the top of the grade range; certified French (B2 minimum, C1 in practice); and, for the baccalauréat equivalents, recognition of your diploma — request a Statement of Comparability from ENIC-NARIC France if yours is not pre-recognised. There is no SAT or MCAT in the French system; selection happens after you enrol, in the PASS/L.AS year itself, not before. That is the structural difference from the US and (for medicine) the UK: in France you do not test your way in, you survive your way through the first year.

One honest planning note. Because first-year entry is a ranked filter rather than a guaranteed seat, treat PASS/L.AS as a high-risk first year. Build a realistic backup — the mineure in PASS or the host degree in L.AS exists precisely so that the two-thirds of students who do not progress to year two keep a usable bachelor’s. Students who plan only for success and not for the realistic odds are the ones the system punishes hardest.

Costs — what a French medical degree really costs

Public-university tuition for medicine is almost nominal; your real spend is living costs across a long degree. The headline tuition figures:

Set that against £37,000–£60,000+ per year for international clinical medicine at a UK university, or US MD costs that exceed $250,000 in tuition alone, and the French public route is in a different universe. The internship years (troisième cycle) are salaried — you are a hospital doctor in training drawing a wage, not paying tuition.

Living costs are the real budget, and they mirror the France hub’s city breakdown: roughly €1,000–€1,400/month in Paris, €700–€1,000 in Lyon, Montpellier, Strasbourg, Lille, Toulouse or Marseille. Three subsidies soften it, all open to international students:

• CAF housing benefit — €150–€230/month for a student, any nationality, on an eligible rental (caf.fr).
• CROUS — public student residences at €200–€400/month and the €3.30 canteen meal (€1 for social-criteria scholars).
• From the second cycle, a salary — externes are paid a modest stipend on the wards, and internes earn a full hospital wage.

A realistic all-in figure for an EU medical student is roughly €9,000–€17,000 a year including living costs, dropping further once the salaried hospital years begin. For non-EU students add the institutional tuition and the VLS-TS visa costs, still far below the Anglophone alternatives.

Scholarships, work rights and the path after qualifying

Medicine-specific scholarships in France are thin — the system’s logic is that tuition is already near-zero, so funding focuses on living costs and the post-2020 expansion of places rather than on medical-school waivers. The honest budgeting advice from the France hub applies doubly here: the public-tuition floor plus CAF plus the salaried clinical years do most of the work; treat any scholarship as a bonus, not a plan.

• Bourse Eiffel — the flagship French government scholarship covers non-EU master’s and PhD candidates (€1,200/month for master’s, €2,000/month for PhDs from 2026) — relevant for the biomedical-science and research master’s around medicine, not the MD itself; your host institution nominates you.
• CROUS bourses sur critères sociaux — need-based grants for EU students via the DSE portal.
• Erasmus+ — funds intra-EU clinical and research electives during the degree.
• Home-country schemes travel with you (many EU countries run a national academic-exchange agency that funds study abroad).

Working while you study. EU students work without restriction; non-EU students on a VLS-TS work up to 964 hours/year (≈20 hrs/week). In practice the medical workload, and then the paid hospital years, leave little room for outside jobs after first year — and that is fine, because from the second cycle the wards pay you.

After you qualify. A French MD opens three doors. Inside the EU/EEA, the diplôme d’État de docteur en médecine is recognised automatically under the Professional Qualifications Directive — you can register and practise in Poland, Germany, Spain or any member state with minimal formalities. Non-EU graduates move from the post-study APS permit onto the Passeport Talent and, given France’s doctor shortage, into secure employment. Outside the EU, the degree is a credential, not a free pass: the US requires the USMLE and the residency match; the UK (post-Brexit) GMC registration via PLAB; Canada and Australia their own licensing exams. The French MD is WFME/ECFMG-listed, so those routes are open — you simply sit the host country’s exam.

How College Council helps

Medicine in France rewards two things: a candid early read on whether the French-language, high-attrition model fits you, and disciplined planning around absolute deadlines. We help with both.

The first decision is honest fit — French to C1, the appetite for a PASS/L.AS year where two-thirds do not progress, the willingness to spend a decade in one system. We work through that with families against the same Atlas data that powers this guide, then build a realistic shortlist of faculties and a backup that does not waste a year. Register on College Council and run your profile through app.college-council.com/chances: the engine maps your school-leaving qualification — A-levels, the IB, the matura or another — onto realistic entry odds across the French faculties — and across the alternatives — so you are not betting a year on a single packed amphitheatre. Browse every French medical faculty, its CHU and its location in our universities Atlas.

If your medical plan also spans English-taught routes — Italy’s IMAT, US pre-med, or UK medicine — you will need test scores France itself never asks for. Prepare the digital SAT for US and select international applications in our SAT app, and the TOEFL iBT for English-medium programmes elsewhere in our TOEFL app, so a single year of preparation keeps several countries open at once. France needs French; your wider strategy may still need both.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary — is medicine in France right for you?

France runs one of the cheapest serious medical educations in the world: roughly €175 a year in public tuition, a degree recognised automatically across the EU, and clinical training inside Europe’s largest hospital networks. For an EU student who can operate in French, the value is unmatched — six pre-internship years of tuition costs about €1,100, less than a single week of UK clinical medicine.

It is right for you if you can study and then practise medicine in French (B2 to enrol, C1 in reality), if you can stomach a PASS/L.AS first year where most students do not progress, and if you want to spend a decade inside a public, hospital-anchored system with secure employment at the end. It is the wrong choice if you need an English-taught MD — in which case Italy’s IMAT route or Greece’s English-taught medicine will serve you far better — or if you cannot commit to learning French to a clinical standard before you start.

If you fit the model, few countries in the world offer this combination of price, recognition and clinical depth. Start with the language, plan the backup, and respect the deadlines.

Next Steps

1. Be honest about French — you need B2 to enrol and C1 to practise; if you are not there, build a year of intensive French into your timeline before applying.
2. Pick your route — Parcoursup (PASS/L.AS) if you are an EU citizen, Études en France if you are non-EU; both demand top science marks.
3. Plan the backup — choose your PASS mineure or L.AS host degree so a non-progression first year still leaves you with a usable bachelor’s.
4. Keep other doors open — if you are also considering English-taught medicine, prepare the SAT and TOEFL that France itself never asks for.
5. See where you stand — register on College Council and run your profile through app.college-council.com/chances; we hold every French faculty, its requirements and your realistic odds.

Read Also

• Studying in France: complete guide for international students — the full France system, costs, visa and post-study path
• Study medicine in Italy via the IMAT — the leading English-taught MD route in Europe
• How to study medicine in Greece — another value-focused European medical destination
• Sorbonne & PSL Paris — detailed study guide — France’s deepest research and medical base

Sources and Methodology

University and faculty profiles are drawn from College Council’s Atlas dataset of French higher-education institutions and cross-checked against each faculty’s website and its university hospital (CHU). High-stakes current-cycle figures (tuition, the PASS/L.AS reform, degree recognition, deadlines) were verified against official French government sources in June 2026. Public health-track tuition is set by annual decree and non-EU institutional fees vary by faculty, so always confirm the exact figure on your faculty’s page for your intake year.

1. service-public.fr — Études de médecine et reconnaissance du diplôme (structure of medical studies; EU recognition of the diplôme d’État) and public-university tuition (statutory health-track fees; CVEC)
2. Ministère de la Santé et de la Prévention — Réforme des études de santé: PASS et L.AS (2020 abolition of PACES and the numerus clausus; numerus apertus; ~15% increase in places)
3. Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche — annual tuition decree, 2025/26 (health-track ~€175 / ~€243; non-EU €2,850 / €3,879, partial exemptions to €2,770 / €3,770; CVEC ~€103)
4. Parcoursup — parcoursup.gouv.fr (PASS/L.AS application for EU candidates; mid-January opening, March close, late-May results)
5. Campus France — Études en France — non-EU admission and VLS-TS visa pre-clearance procedure (65+ countries; health-studies entry)
6. CAF — caf.fr (APL/ALS housing benefit, €150–€230/month, any nationality)
7. CROUS / messervices.etudiant.gouv.fr — student residences (€200–€400/month) and the €3.30 university restaurant meal
8. Université de Montpellier — Faculté de Médecine — institutional history (medical teaching since 1220, the oldest continuously operating school of medicine)
9. AP-HP (Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris) — teaching-hospital network affiliated with the Paris faculties (Sorbonne, Université Paris Cité); largest hospital group in Europe
10. College Council — Atlas higher-education dataset (French HEI identity, faculty and location data) and internal advising experience with international medical applicants