You do not plan to fall ill in a strange port, but you will, sooner or later. A cut that goes septic, a tooth that flares up off Belle-Ile, a child with a fever in Camaret, an ear infection after too long in the water. Over enough seasons in France I have walked into pharmacies and surgeries up and down the coast, and the process is far simpler than most visitors fear, once you know how the French system is shaped.
Start at the pharmacy, not the surgery
The single most useful thing a visiting sailor can know is that the French pharmacy is the front door to healthcare, not the last stop. Pharmacists here are highly trained and have real authority. They will look at a wound, tell you whether it needs a doctor, recommend and sell you a remedy, and treat a lot of minor complaints that in Britain would send you queuing at a GP. For seasickness, sunburn, a urinary infection, an upset stomach, a sting, the pharmacy is your first and often only stop.
You find them by the green cross. Every French pharmacy displays a lit green cross, usually animated, and it is visible from a surprising distance, which is handy when you are walking up from the visitors pontoon into an unfamiliar town. The cross also tells you something: a steady or flashing display indicates whether it is open, and the standard window notice lists the pharmacie de garde, the duty pharmacy covering nights, Sundays and the long French lunch closure.
Opening hours and the lunch trap
French opening hours catch out every newcomer. Many pharmacies and almost all surgeries close for lunch, often from around 1200 to 1400, and a small port pharmacy may shut entirely on Sunday and Monday. If you arrive at noon with a problem, you may be looking at a two-hour wait or a trip to the pharmacie de garde in the next town. Plan medical errands for the morning or late afternoon, and check the door notice before you assume you are stuck.
For anything outside hours, the pharmacie de garde system means there is always one duty pharmacy in each area. The notice on any pharmacy door names it, and the local town hall or a quick search will confirm. For genuine after-hours medication you may need to ring a bell and be served through a hatch, and a duty fee applies, but you will get what you need.
A word on the August problem, because it catches British sailors out badly. France largely shuts in August, and small port pharmacies and surgeries are no exception. A single doctor in a fishing village may take three weeks off, and the nearest open surgery could be a bus ride away. The pharmacie de garde still functions, but the relaxed same-day GP appointment you would get in June can vanish in high summer. If you are cruising the French coast in August, carry more medical supplies aboard than you think you need, because the shore safety net is thinner than usual exactly when the marinas are fullest.
Seeing a doctor
If the pharmacist sends you to a doctor, a medecin generaliste is the GP equivalent. In a port town you can often get a same-day or next-day appointment, and many surgeries keep slots for consultation sans rendez-vous, walk-ins. The booking platform Doctolib covers most of France and lets you find an English-friendly doctor and book from your phone, which beats wandering the streets looking for a brass plate.
The cost is predictable. A standard consultation with a sector 1 doctor is fixed at 30 euros as of 2025, rising to 35 euros for a child under six. Sector 2 doctors can charge above that, so ask before you book if money is tight. You pay at the end of the appointment, the doctor hands you a feuille de soins, and if you hold a GHIC card you reclaim 70 percent of the regulated fee afterwards. Carry a card and a little cash, because not every small surgery takes foreign payment cards smoothly.
If the surgery is shut and the pharmacist judges you need a doctor urgently outside hours, the route is SOS Medecins in larger towns, a home-visit and walk-in service that operates evenings, nights and weekends. In a true emergency it is the hospital urgences department, but for the middle ground, a fever that worries you, a wound that needs looking at, an infection spreading, SOS Medecins is the French answer and they will see foreigners without fuss. Expect to pay more than the daytime 30 euros for an out-of-hours or home visit, with supplements for nights, Sundays and bank holidays, but it is still modest by the standards of private healthcare anywhere else.
Getting a prescription filled
A French doctor writes an ordonnance, a prescription, and you take it straight to any pharmacy. Two things surprise British sailors here. First, French pharmacists dispense by the molecule, the generic name, not the UK brand, so write down your regular medicines by their chemical name before you travel, not by the brand on the box at home. Second, you generally pay for the medicine at the counter rather than a flat prescription charge.
The arithmetic is gentle. There is a 50 centime levy per pack dispensed, capped at 50 euros per person per year, and the medicine itself is reimbursed at 15, 30, 65 or 100 percent depending on what it is. A 20 euro medicine at the 65 percent rate leaves you 12 euros to claim back. Keep the receipt and the stamped ordonnance, because that paperwork is your reimbursement claim later.
The flat patient contribution is worth knowing too: a small per-consultation charge that doubled recently from 1 euro to 2 euros, plus the per-pack levy on medicines, neither of which is reimbursed. These are deliberately small to discourage overuse, and they will not dent a cruising budget. What can sting is buying common remedies, sunscreen, antiseptic, plasters, seasickness tablets, at a French pharmacy when you could have stocked them at home for a fraction of the price. French pharmacy retail on the non-medicine items is not cheap, which is the practical case for a well-found boat.
What to keep aboard so you rarely need any of this
Most port visits to a pharmacy are for things you could have carried. A well-stocked boat means you only go ashore for the genuine problem, not for plasters and paracetamol at French retail prices. I keep my boat medical kit for France topped up at the start of each season precisely so a green cross is a rare errand rather than a weekly one.
A short list of what I have learned to do:
- Note your regular medications by generic name, with doses, on a card kept with the ship's papers.
- Carry enough of any prescription medicine to outlast the cruise plus a fortnight, because foreign refills of UK-only drugs are not guaranteed.
- Keep a small euro float for the pharmacy and surgery, since reimbursement comes later and some counters dislike foreign cards.
- Learn the green cross and the pharmacie de garde notice on day one in any new port.
When it is more than a port errand
All of the above assumes you can walk ashore. The moment a medical problem hits while you are still at sea, none of this applies and you are into a different procedure entirely, the one I keep pinned by the chart table for a medical emergency at sea in France. Ashore, though, the French system is calm, competent and cheaper than you expect. Find the green cross, ask the pharmacist first, and you will be back aboard with a remedy before the tide turns.
