US EditionFrench Senate rejects assisted dying law after heated debate
The Senate vote rejected the amended assisted dying bill 181-122 after right-wing and centrist senators removed key provisions; the law will return to the National Assembly next month.
- On Wednesday, France’s Senate rejected a government-backed draft law on assisted dying, billed as one of the country’s most important social reforms in more than a decade.
- Last year the bill had passed the lower National Assembly but was heavily amended in the upper house after often angry and chaotic debate led by right-wing and centrist senators, and supporters said the amendments stripped the text of its purpose.
- With assisted-dying language removed, the amended version made no mention of assisted dying and the Senate rejected it by 181 votes to 122.
- The government could allow the lower chamber to pass the legislation definitively without the Senate’s approval, and President Emmanuel Macron said a referendum could be held if the bill becomes blocked.
- Assisted dying is already legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada and polls show public support has increased steadily over 20 years; separately, the Senate passed an end-of-life care law, with the draft set to return next month to the National Assembly.
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31 Articles
The European Conservative
Europe ReloadedFinal Twist at French Senate: Progressive Euthanasia Bill Back on Track
French parliamentarians continue to battle over the bill to legalise euthanasia. Although, following an unexpected rebellion, senators managed to amend the bill in a way that was openly pro-life, the final vote in the upper house overturned all their work by rejecting all the amendments proposed by the Right. As a result, it is the initial deadly law that is likely to be adopted in the final reading. There have been a series of twists and turns …
After having changed the content of the bill passed by the deputies, the senators finally rejected it by 181 votes on Wednesday. A result that is the sum of oppositions to the opposite motives, some denouncing a text "not done or done", others considering that it goes too far or, conversely, that it betrays the original text.
The upper house of the French parliament, the Senate, today rejected a bill on the end of life that would allow for assisted dying for some patients. The bill will return to the lower house of parliament next month, where the government could allow it to be finally adopted.
Senators have refused to consider any form of assisted suicide and euthanasia emptying the text of its substance. MPs will resume consideration of this end-of-life bill by returning from the...
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