The AP-HP has a new head. Nicolas Revel, former chief of staff of Jean Castex at Matignon, has been appointed head of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, according to the report of the Council of Ministers on Monday.

At the age of 56, he succeeds Martin Hirsch, who for almost ten years had directed the leading French hospital group (39 establishments, nearly 100,000 employees). Before his time at Matignon, he had headed the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) from 2014 to 2020. A position awarded by François Hollande, who had previously recruited him in 2012 as deputy secretary general of the Elysée, in tandem with Emmanuel Macron.

From the beginnings at the Court of Auditors

This enarque (promotion Léon Gambetta), son of the writer Jean-François Revel and the journalist Claude Sarraute, first cut his teeth at the Court of Auditors, before entering politics from the left. Technical adviser to Jean Glavany at the Ministry of Agriculture, he joined and then headed the cabinet of Bertrand Delanoë at the Paris City Hall.

He therefore takes the torch from the hands of Martin Hirsch, who left his post against the backdrop of an unprecedented crisis in the public hospital. Congested hospitals, growing medical deserts, “loss of sense” of the profession for staff, emergency services on the verge of syncope: the wounds of the healthcare system are raw at the end of more than two years of pandemic which have wrung the caregivers. Along with school, it is one of the two major projects of Emmanuel Macron’s new five-year term, who has planned to launch his major conference on health in July with the key to a “real collective revolution to be made”.