End of life law: the failure of a consensus

The promise of a “consensual” law will have fizzled out. While Emmanuel Macron had urged a “come together”, the diametrically opposed visions of deputies and senators (the National Assembly wanting to establish extensive “assisted dying”, the Senate refusing it) did not allow a middle path to emerge. The joint committee, meeting on June 2, 2026 to bring the two chambers closer together, failed. The government now intends to complete the procedure by giving the last word to the National Assembly on July 15, as permitted by the Constitution.

“Everyone remained on their positions, compromise was not possible,” Olivier Henno, a centrist senator, declared at the end of the meeting. “For more than a year, the Senate has been trying meticulously and methodically to prevent the outcome of a text that was expected by a large majority of French people,” replied the deputies co-rapporteurs of the bill.

According to the Minister of Relations with Parliament, Laurent Panifous, a “final shuttle” – that is to say a final round trip between the Palais Bourbon and the Palais du Luxembourg – will still take place. The text should thus be submitted to a vote by deputies around June 22, then before senators a week later. Barring a twist and a vote in the same terms by the two assemblies, the text will return one last time to the National Assembly, for a vote expected on July 15. The law on the end of life would then be adopted at the last minute before the summer break. A perspective that would allow the President of the Republic to save face at the end of three years of debate. “Emmanuel Macron will have the societal marker of his presidency,” ironically tackles an elected official.

Extensive legalization

Noting a “lasting divide” between the two houses of Parliament, the French Society for Support and Palliative Care (Sfap) was alarmed, warning “against any force”. Resolutely opposed to any legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide, this collective bringing together medical personnel working with people at the end of their lives “calls on the public authorities to hear the proposals of caregivers in the field, rather than imposing a text that the parliamentary debate has not made it possible to construct”.

Conversely, supporters of the text are delighted with this timetable. “On July 15, the National Assembly will definitively vote on a freedom law! », Triumphed over “I salute the government’s determination to see this text through to completion and to set a clear timetable now,” applauded MP (non-registered) Stella Dupont, in favor of the text. “It is time that the national representation can definitively decide. »

In its latest version adopted by the National Assembly, the bill submitted by former MP Olivier Falorni provides for particularly extensive legalization of active assistance in dying. “The right to assisted dying is the right for a person who has expressed a request to be authorized to use a lethal substance and accompanied (…) so that they can administer it to themselves or, when they are not physically able to do so, to have it administered by a doctor or nurse. » In addition to an age requirement (being an adult), you must be suffering from a “serious and incurable illness, whatever the cause, which is life-threatening, in an advanced phase, characterized by entry into an irreversible process marked by the worsening of the state of health of the sick person which affects their quality of life, or in a terminal phase” and be “able to express your will in a free and informed manner”.

Obstruction offense

If a freedom of conscience is recognized for caregivers who do not wish to associate themselves with acts of euthanasia, this text nevertheless worries opponents, and has been severely sanctioned. The act of “preventing or attempting to prevent practicing or obtaining information about assisted dying by any means, including electronically or online, in particular by the dissemination or transmission of allegations or indications likely to intentionally mislead, with a deterrent purpose” should therefore be punished.

Unless there is a major turnaround, the National Assembly should therefore end several years of debate on the end of life next month. Without putting an end to the deep divisions that this subject continues to arouse.