Simone Veil was a French magistrate, Holocaust survivor, and politician who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. As health minister, she is best remembered for advancing women's rights in France, in particular for the 1975 law that legalized abortion, today known as the Veil Act. From 1998 to 2007, she was a member of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal authority.

Minister for Health and Prevention is a cabinet position in the Government of France. The health portfolio oversees the health care public services and the health insurance part of the French Social Security. As French ministerial departments are not fixed and depend on the Prime Minister's choice, the Minister sometimes also has one or some of other portfolios among Work, Pensions, Family, the Elderly, Handicapped people and Women's Rights. In that case, he is helped by one or some junior Minister focusing on one part of the portfolio. The current Minister is Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo.