The French parliament has approved a law creating a right to euthanasia and assisted suicide for adults with incurable illnesses, ending years of argument over one of the country’s most contested social reforms.
Deputies in the National Assembly backed the text by 291 votes to 241 on July 15. It was the fourth time the lower house had approved the bill, which was championed by President Emmanuel Macron.
Patients who meet the criteria would receive a lethal substance and administer it themselves. Where they are physically unable to do so, a doctor or a nurse would administer it.
Applicants must be French citizens or legal residents, suffer from a grave and incurable illness that threatens life and be in physical pain that no treatment or palliative care can relieve. The request has to be made freely and with full knowledge, which excludes patients in a coma or living with dementia.
The Senate, dominated by a right-wing and centrist alliance, rejected the text three times. After a joint committee of both chambers failed to agree, the French Government handed the final say to the Assembly, as the constitution allows.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Senate speaker Gérard Larcher said they would refer the law to the Constitutional Council, which has a month to rule.
Lecornu’s office said the council would be asked whether clauses such as the minimum two-day reflection period between medical approval and the patient’s confirmation are compatible with personal liberty and human dignity. Macron cannot promulgate the law until the review is complete.
The President said in a message on X that he had committed in 2022 to opening the path with the French people and that the promise had been kept.
The French Bishops’ Conference said July 15 marked a grave rupture in the country’s history, arguing that deputies had written the deliberate causing of death into French law. It said the political, ideological and economic stakes had been disguised by misleading words.
Right-wing opponents fought the bill to the end. Bruno Retailleau, the Les Républicains leader and a former interior minister, led resistance in the Senate, while National Rally deputy Christophe Bentz called the text “very dangerous”.
Until now the Claeys-Leonetti law of 2016 has allowed deep and continuous sedation for terminally ill patients with a short prognosis. The bishops say that framework already offers an alternative to causing death.
They warned that the poorest would be the first to pay the price, with elderly people in precarious circumstances liable to feel pushed towards dying rather than burden their families. Eligibility criteria in other countries had steadily widened at the expense of palliative care, they added.
