France’s Macron sets his sights on legalizing assisted suicide

Now that France has established a constitutional right to abortion, President Emmanuel Macron has announced his intention to next focus on legalizing assisted suicide. 

In an interview Monday, Macron said he will present the National Assembly with a bill that would legalize assisted death in May. The proposal would include stipulations that a person must have a serious illness to qualify, be over 18, and fully able to consent to the process. Though these stipulations are said to prevent abuse, as has been seen elsewhere in the world, those safeguards are often quickly repealed by those who are pro-assisted death without limitations. 

When he was elected in 2022, Macron made good on a campaign promise that he would expand assisted death by launching a “citizens’ convention” panel of 184 people to study the potential impact of legalizing assisted suicide. At the conclusion of the study, more than half of the panel participants said they were in favor of assisted death.

Macron said his proposal will offer “a possible path, in a determined situation, with precise criteria, where the medical decision is playing its role.” He also shied away from using the terms “assisted suicide” or “euthanasia,” saying he instead preferred “aid in dying … because it’s simple and humane.”

‘Aid in dying’ or ‘assistance in dying’ is a common euphemism meant to detract from what is really happening – a death that is touted as compassionate, but which is often painful and tragic. In fact, the peaceful death that participants are promised is not at all humane, and they may end up silently drowning in their own bodily fluids while unable to move.

In a post on X, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the full text of the proposal will be presented to the National Assembly on May 27, calling it “progress for our country.” “Death can no longer be a taboo issue and subject to silence,” he added.

Macron’s plan has drawn a swift response from the nation’s Catholic bishops. 

“A law like this, whatever its aim, will bend our whole health system towards death as a solution,” Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, head of the French Bishops’ Conference, told La Croix.

The proposal has also seen pushback from some of the country’s medical workers. “[Macron] has with great violence announced a system far removed from patients’ needs and health workers’ daily reality, which could have grave consequences on the care relationship,” the associations for palliative care, cancer support, and specialist nurses said in a joint statement. The associations accused the government of trying to save money by passing the legislation, saying that ill people would be better served by an increase in palliative care.

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