>>My father was in a French hospital after a heart attack while driving to the South of France and the food there was excellent (never saw their itemised bill though)
EU reciprocity = no bill.
Not keen to say it here, but care definitely is best in world in some parts of France, especially the parts close to Germany and Switzerland, iow not where your father was.
Of course the French insist on doing everything their own way. My kids went to school during a visit a few years ago and the school stopped mid-day so the kids could go home for hot dinner in the middle of the day. And home they all went.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
