His cousin's diploma, a forged letter of "aptitude" signed by a real GP, and a nurse who noticed: the Marseille health-centre case, and the false intern convicted in Meaux

France registers doctors through the Ordre des médecins and runs an online register, and the cases of 2025 show that the register is mostly consulted after the fact, by the people who grew suspicious.

According to Egora and What's Up Doc, a 54-year-old man was sentenced in January 2025 in Marseille to three years in prison, 20 months of them suspended, for practising medicine illegally at a health centre in the city centre. He had used a falsified version of his cousin's diploma and had written himself a letter of recommendation attesting to his "aptitude to exercise a hospital function", signed by a practising general practitioner. It was his fourth time before a court for illegal practice. He was exposed by a nurse at the centre who found his consultations inept. In a second case reported by Egora, a 41-year-old man was sentenced by the court in Meaux to a year in prison for illegal practice after being hired as an intern at several hospitals on falsified diplomas. Le Quotidien du Médecin has reported a further case of a false general practitioner in Montceau-les-Mines whose diploma was bought for about 200 euros.

The Marseille man had been convicted three times before. He kept getting hired, which tells you where the check failed: not at the register, which recorded him, but at the employer, which read the diploma and the letter and did not ask the Ordre.

For students, the forged recommendation letter is the detail to remember. Agents and impostors understand that a signature from a real person is more persuasive than any seal, and a letter "from the dean" or "from a professor" is among the cheapest things to fabricate. Confirm anything that matters with the person or office that supposedly issued it, through contact details you find independently. The health centre in Marseille did not, and a nurse did their verification for them.