Making mental health the national cause for 2026 was, on paper, a decision that should have marked a turning point. The subject has long been treated as an unsaid, an embarrassment, almost a weakness to be hidden. Proclaiming it a national priority sent a strong signal: this illness, which affects one in five French people at some point in their lives, finally deserved the same seriousness as any other public health emergency.

The problem is that labeling a cause doesn't cure anyone. On the ground, child psychiatrists are few and far between in entire regions. Waiting times for a first appointment at a medical-psychological center are still measured in months, sometimes years for children. Listening associations, for their part, rely on volunteers and grants renewed drop by drop, when they don't close down.

What the Year Actually Produced

This year has nonetheless produced visible results: awareness campaigns in the media, training modules deployed in some schools, more open public discourse on burnout, anxiety, or depression. This is not insignificant: breaking the silence is a necessary condition for affected individuals to dare to ask for help. But breaking the silence is not enough if, once courage is found, the door they knock on remains closed for months due to a lack of available professionals.

This gap between the symbol and the concrete is not new: France excels at declaring major causes and struggling to fund them long-term. A national cause does not have an automatic dedicated budget; it is worth what the relevant ministries are willing to allocate, once the spotlight has faded. A training course, a digital module, an awareness campaign: these are real progress, but they do not replace an additional caregiver in an overstretched department.

A Structural, Not Conjunctural, Problem

Professionals in the sector have been saying it for years, long before the label existed: the problem is not just the number of places, but the age pyramid of a profession that struggles to renew itself, the low attractiveness of public child psychiatry positions, and a territorial network that leaves entire departments without local support. No communication campaign, however successful, can bridge this kind of structural gap in twelve months.

The risk with any national cause is to treat it as an event rather than a project. An event ends, a review is made, and we move on. A project, however, continues to require resources the following year, and the year after, without the benefit of media attention that pushes for action. Mental health, by its nature, is precisely this kind of issue: its effects are measured over years, its progress is slow and not very spectacular, and nothing guarantees that it will remain a priority once the 2026 label is put away in the archives.

The Indicators Missing from the Debate

A few months before the end of this symbolic year, the question is no longer whether the subject has been taken seriously in speeches – it has been. It is about what will remain once France moves on to the next national cause. Without sustainable funding and massive recruitment of professionals, 2026 risks remaining a good year to talk about it, and another year where finding an appointment will not have been any easier.

There are, however, simple indicators to judge the real success of such a cause, far more telling than the number of campaigns broadcast: the average waiting time for a first appointment, the number of child psychiatrist positions actually filled, the rate of renewal of association funding from one year to the next. These figures exist, or could be easily published if they don't already. Their absence from public debate says a lot about the nature of the exercise: intentions are readily communicated, results much less so.

Those directly concerned do not need statistics to judge. They know, from experience, what it means to call a medical-psychological center and be offered an appointment in six months. They know what it is to forgo private consultation due to lack of funds, or to see a suffering child remain on a waiting list while their condition continues to deteriorate. For them, the national cause remains, for now, a word heard on the radio.

Acknowledging this gap does not invalidate the value of having chosen this theme: the liberated discourse on mental health is an achievement that will likely outlive 2026 itself, and that is far from negligible. But a serious country should not be content with having spoken well about a problem for twelve months. It should be able to say, once the year is over, how many professionals have been recruited, how many waiting times have been reduced, and how many people have concretely been able to receive care earlier than they would have without this label. Otherwise, the next national cause will deserve the same vigilance as this one.

*Opinion piece. The views expressed are solely those of the author.*