Can you register with a MD before you have a Carte Vitale?
A French doctor once told me that many of his colleagues had reasonable English but when it came down to it they preferred to use their native language so anything that was lost in translation was the patients’ doing not theirs.
You can could certainly see one, in an emergency situation… been there and done that with many new arrivals… no idea what the situation is currently (with all that is going on) but would reckon that emergency is still emergency… 
Anyone can see a doctor my question was specifically about registering with one. When I got confirmation of my CV I received a form to register with a doctor. I’ve since had to change doctors because my original one retired and the registration can now be done by the doctor online. I was under the impression that to register you had to have a CV.
<deity> what a ******* attitude.
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Notaires do the same.
Registering with an MT means registering him/her as your MT with CPAM. You then get a higher refund on your treatments via your MT.
If you’re not in the French health system with a sécu number then CPAM has no record of you.
So no, you can’t register anything in a system that you yourself are not registered in.
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Ah yes… that is registering with the doctor of your choice…
You can sneakily get on the list of a doctor if you see him/her in an emergancy situation… and he/she continues to treat you… private rather than CPAM of course… I’ve seen that work several times…
perhaps our country docs are more amenable… they seem to come up trumps when the cards are down…
My point was because the OP says that they haven’t yet registered with a doctor and implies that they haven’t yet received their CV. As it has been confirmed not yet having registered with a doctor does not prevent the OP from making an appointment.
I totally disagree for two reasons.
Firstly, their professional insurance protects them in the event that they are sued for giving poor medical advice.
If they give advice in a foreign language and it comes out wrong and you sue them, their insurance wouldn’t cover them.
Secondly, they’re qualified in medicine not in English. Professionals normally aim to deliver their services to a professional standard. I can understand why a doctor would not feel that medical advice delivered in pidgin English so that the gist is understood but the detail is lost, is not delivering service to a professional standard.
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Mmm… bearing in mind the OP has a chronic health condition… it could simply be a misunderstanding of the use of words.
but let us not pick over these bones…
the basic thing is that Yes anyone (with or without CV) can get emergency medical help/advice… it is important to know just how to go about this in these difficult times…
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Absolutely.
You’re not obliged to register an MT at all. I rarely visit doctors and I’d had my CV for years before I got round to sorting out an MT. Then six months later he retired 
and now I haven’t got one again.
And as Stella says, even if you have registered one doctor as your MT you can still go to another doctor if you want.
It’s not at all the same concept as being registered with a doctor in the UK.
The MT system gives a financial incentive to register an MT and keep using the same doctor because that’s seen as the most efficient way for the health service to operate.
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Anna’s already answered but I honnestly think nobody should move to another country expecting people to talk to them in the foreign person’s language. This idea that English should be spoken by everyone everywhere is a terrible throwback to collonial attitudes and “just speak/shout louder” monty python sketches. Should everybody be expected to speak Spanish, German, Italian for their nearer neighbours too,…?! 
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I’m not sure that my previous post was getting the point that the doctor was making across very well. He said it in a positive way, he was pointing out that many doctors would have more English than expected but there were those who shied away from being considered to be an English speaker on purpose. At the time, in the days of Anglo Info, posts from people looking for an English speaking doctor or dentist were very common.
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ah! those halcyon days. Where are they now though?
Better and more informed class of peeps on SF 
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112 is an international number in that it is the same number all over Europe, that doesn’t mean the operators are all polyglot, do you think eg Croats expect a hrvatski speaker if they ring it from Spain or Belgium?
Many people have enough of a grasp of a foreign language to get by in a social situation, that doesn’t mean they trust their ability in a potentially life-threatening situation.
Some French doctors speak foreign languages excellently, but not always English. I don’t see why anyone would expect them to speak sufficiently good English to use it for work.
Do they speak good French at the chemist’s where you lived in the UK?
What is your UK doctor’s French/German/Spanish /Italian like?
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Zilch. He had problems speaking english, never mind any other language.
I was in the hospital in Confolens, and the Doc i spoke to spoke excellent english. (He said my english is better than your French). I know a lot of german doctors that speak better english than a lot of the english themselves… Ignorance on the part of the brits i 'm afraid.
Recent recruits to my UK GP practice include an Aussie male who is crackers but lovely and an Eastern European lady whose English is perfect
Good lad… I thought you might be on the case…
In response to the various replies to my comment - my view has not changed since this came up in the debate following revelations that the NHS “wastes” millions on translators
I 100% agree if you move to a country you should learn the language, heck I think you should try a little even if just holidaying. My instinct was not to point this out to the OP as “learn the language” is a useful long term goal - it is not terribly helpful if you need to get registered with a GP in the immediate future.
I also agree that doctors should not rely on their own language skills unless they are fluent - nor rely on family members, neighbours or anyone else who could not translate medical terms reliably.
BUT, a doctor - any doctor - has a duty, frequently codified in law and if not certainly a part of the ethical standards to which doctors should adhere in the modern world, to gain informed consent for treatments and you cannot do that if you do not have a language that both doctor and patient share with a good degree of fluency.
I am aware that the French have a different attitude to that prevailing in the NHS which is that we will provide a translator if necessary whereas the French expect the patient to fund this. As it is not a cheap undertaking many will not have the resources to do so and there are many circumstances where you might find yourself in need of healthcare in France when you cannot speak French well.
But for a doc to just shrug their shoulders and refuse to deal with the issue is not a position I would ever agree with.