This text summarizes the points presented in a keynote address at the 5th Congress of General Practice in Nice on June 25, 2011, as an introduction to the session titled "Implementing Patient Therapeutic Education in General Practice." The first objective was to describe, based on recent quantitative and qualitative data, the practices and preferences of general practitioners regarding patient therapeutic education (PTE), as well as patients’ expectations. The second objective was to present the recommendations of the High Council for Public Health (HCSP) for developing PTE integrated into primary care, in order to open a discussion on the compatibility of these recommendations with the functions of general practice and with the tasks that general practitioners must perform to fulfill the role society expects of them. [publisher’s abstract]