French lawmakers voted 291-241 to authorize assisted dying for qualifying adults and legal residents with serious, incurable illnesses after repeated clashes between the National Assembly and Senate.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
France’s National Assembly gave final approval Wednesday to legislation establishing a legal framework for assisted dying, delivering on a commitment President Emmanuel Macron made in 2022 after years of political debate and repeated rejection by the Senate.
The measure passed the lower chamber with 291 lawmakers voting in favor, 241 voting against and 29 abstaining, according to the official National Assembly vote.
The final vote came after the legislation moved between the National Assembly and Senate three times, as required under French parliamentary procedures when the two chambers remain divided.
The National Assembly had previously approved the proposal on three occasions, while the Senate rejected it each time. The upper chamber’s latest rejection occurred last week.
Wednesday’s vote allowed the National Assembly to make the final decision and brought an end to years of legislative disputes over whether France should permit euthanasia and assisted dying under limited circumstances.
Macron’s political allies and lawmakers from the French left largely supported the legislation, while right-wing members opposed it, according to Le Monde.
The approved law is reportedly narrower than Canada’s medical assistance in dying system. It permits qualifying French adults and legal residents to request assistance in ending their lives when they have a serious and incurable illness that threatens their life and has reached an advanced or terminal stage, according to the BBC’s account of the legislation.
The illness must also cause “constant physical or psychological suffering that is unbearable or resistant to treatment.”
A person seeking the procedure must “freely manifest” the request to a doctor and participate in a medical consultation. The physician would then have 15 days to decide whether the applicant meets the legal requirements before the process could proceed.
Under the law, the patient would generally be required to administer the lethal substance personally. A doctor or nurse could administer it when the patient is physically unable to do so without assistance.
Macron welcomed the measure’s passage in a social media statement, describing the vote as the completion of a pledge he first made four years earlier.
“With gravity, with humility, and in full respect for our democracy, that commitment has been honored,” Macron said.
“I have a thought for all those who personally approached me, who shared their stories, their doubts, their convictions, and their hopes. Their testimonies have deeply nourished this text,” his statement read in part.
The French Catholic Church strongly opposed the outcome and described the vote as a historic departure from the country’s previous approach to protecting human life.
In a two-page statement, the Church called the vote a “grave rupture” in French history and said lawmakers had “inscribed into French law the possibility of provoking death.”
Church leaders warned that legalizing assisted dying could alter society’s relationship with elderly, sick and otherwise vulnerable people.
The statement argued that poor, seriously ill or elderly patients could feel pressure to end their lives because they do not want to become a burden on relatives, caregivers or the broader health care system.
The Church also urged Catholic care institutions to maintain ethical standards rejecting euthanasia, even as the newly approved law creates a legal pathway for qualifying patients to request the procedure.
Supporters of the legislation portrayed it as a narrowly defined option for people enduring severe and untreatable suffering near the end of life. Opponents maintained that authorizing doctors and nurses to participate in intentionally ending life would create profound ethical and social consequences.
The vote marked the culmination of a prolonged legislative struggle in which the National Assembly repeatedly approved assisted dying while the Senate repeatedly refused to accept it.
With the lower chamber now exercising its final authority, France has moved toward joining other nations that permit some form of medically assisted death while imposing eligibility requirements intended to restrict the procedure to adults with advanced, incurable and life-threatening conditions.
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