France’s Senate has rejected a Bill to legalise assisted suicide for the third time, although supporters remain on course to introduce the law after the legislation returns to the National Assembly, where there is stronger backing.
On Tuesday, senators voted by 169 votes to 164, with 11 abstentions, in favour of rejecting the Bill after less than two hours of debate. The legislation will now return to France’s lower house for a fourth reading, with a final vote expected on 15 July.
Under Article 45 of the French Constitution, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu can allow the National Assembly to have the final say, meaning the Bill could still become law despite repeated opposition from the Senate.
The latest rejection exposed the deep divide between France’s two parliamentary chambers. Christine Bonfanti-Dossat, a Republican senator and one of the Bill’s rapporteurs, described the debate as reaching a “political impasse.”
“Two irreconcilable conceptions of the end of life are in conflict,” she said. She contrasted the National Assembly’s approach, which would make assisted suicide widely available to eligible patients, with the Senate’s preference for a far narrower framework focused on palliative care.
Fellow Republican senator Alain Milon warned that abandoning the long-standing prohibition on intentionally ending life would have profound consequences.
“Major challenges always begin with exceptions,” he said. “Lifting the ban on killing under the pretext of giving patients the freedom to die and end their suffering is to abandon a fundamental principle upon which our society is built.”
More than 1,800 amendments have been tabled throughout the Bill’s passage, reflecting the scale of concern and disagreement surrounding the proposals.
The Roman Catholic Church has continued to urge lawmakers to reject the legislation and instead improve access to palliative care.
Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris said that “today, there is still time to renounce taking this path, which is not that of a fraternal future.”
He also argued that “more than help to die, our society needs help to live.”
Vincent Jordy, Archbishop of Tours and vice-president of the French bishops’ conference, cautioned against assuming every social change represents genuine progress.
“Some choices that may seem like solutions can ultimately produce harmful effects on society,” he said, warning against what he described as an “ideology of progress”.
The French bishops have consistently argued that investment in palliative care, rather than assisted suicide, offers the most compassionate response to those approaching the end of life. In a statement issued earlier this year, they said: “Palliative care is the only truly effective response to the difficult situations of the end of life,” concluding, “We do not care for life by giving death.”
Speaking on the issue SPUC’s Executive Director Michael Robinson said: “SPUC comes into full agreement with the French bishops and those Senators who have consistently made this bill one about care at the end of life, not killing. SPUC hopes the French prime minister will not act in a similar way to parliamentarians in Britain’s lower house are trying to by pushing this murderous bill into law without the consent of a rightly concerned upper chamber.”
