French government approves assisted dying bill

5 months ago 35

The French government adopted the bill on assisted dying on Wednesday (10 April), and Labour and Health Minister Catherine Vautrin outlined the details of the future law that will allow terminal patients suffering from long-term illnesses to decide to end their life.

The bill was long overdue, particularly after the work carried out in December 2022 by the Citizens’ Convention on the End of Life, made up of 150 citizens drawn at random.

In early March, President Emmanuel Macron announced that a “French-style” bill was in the pipeline, with strict conditions for access. Macron also said he did not wish to use the terms assisted suicide or euthanasia.

A month later, and after the Conseil d’État, France’s top administrative court, gave its remarks last week, the health minister sketched out the contours of the future law during the Council of Ministers minutes.

“Among other things, it provides for the introduction of “aid in dying” under certain conditions for patients at the end of their lives who are affected by “physical or psychological suffering” as a result of their illness,” said Vautrin.

The patient must also be at least 18 years old, have French nationality or reside stably and legally in France, and the prognosis must be terminal in the short to medium term.

Vautrin insisted on two conditions described as “pillars”: The first one is that the patient must have “full discernment”, which excludes patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, unlike in Belgium.

The second pillar is that a doctor who does not know the patient must declare him or her “eligible”. If this is the case, the patients may inject the lethal dose themselves.

If they are unable to do so, as would be the case for people suffering from Charcot’s disease, in particular, they can appoint a third party to carry out the procedure.

“This is a first step towards a new right at the end of life,” Jonathan Denis, president of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (ADMD) , said in a press release. “This is the first time in France that a government has introduced legislation to legalise active assistance in dying.”

However, the ADMD wants to eliminate the terminal prognosis in the short or medium term in the future law. “Such a diagnosis […] effectively excludes all slowly progressing illnesses which are accompanied by significant deterioration in the advanced stages”.

The text will be discussed by French MPs in May. The debate “will require an enormous amount of listening, an enormous amount of humility (…) and an enormous amount of respect for freedom of conscience”, Vauntrin concluded.

Other countries in the EU, such as the Netherlands or Switzerland, have legislated on euthanasia but the French model will be different, the presidential office told Euractiv in March after Macron’s announcement.