The helpful pharmacien

"How did you get that prescription?" I asked my family member. "When did you go to the doctor?"

"Oh, I didn't go to the doctor," he said. "I didn't have time, so I just went to the pharmacist and showed him my old prescription, and he gave it to me."

The pharmacists in France are much more highly respected than pharmacists in the U.S. For one thing, a lot of them are just former medical students who studied medicine for a couple of years, then didn't pass the draconian winnowing-out process, like Alexandre, the son of some friends. For another, all of them know how to tell you if the wild mushrooms you picked are safe to eat-- mushrooms are part of their training. Also, a lot of them seem to be pretty young women. The girls in my daughter's class all wanted to be pharmaciennes, which at the time puzzled me, till I saw the maman who was one.

But maybe another reason for their relatively high status is their helpfulness. Unlike an American pharmacist who tends to be the soul of legality, a French one will very often bend the rules. After asking you a few questions, the same ones the doctor would, and if your medication is something fairly normal, half the time you can get it with an old prescription or sometimes none at all. 

The pretty American woman who rented our apartment last year  came back through Paris recently. "I miss the food here, but I miss all the local shopkeepers too.  I went to the pharmacy [a different one] and he just gave me my [medication not available in the States]. He remembered it. In the U.S. I'd have had to keep going back to the doctor and paying $250 a shot each time I did. I miss France so much!"

Comments

[Frenchman]

I don't know about US pharmacists, but also French ones have a PhD in pharmacology (not all of the staff but at least the boss).
Now, it's extremely rare that they'll give you prescription medicine without a prescription. They need to know you very well, because they could get into a lot of trouble.
That being said, some prescription medicine is also sold over the counter, the only difference being that if it's prescribed the Sécurité Sociale will pay for it, if it's not, you will.