- The Senate, with a right-wing majority, began this Tuesday examining the bioethics bill.
- After the National Assembly, which adopted it at first reading in mid-October, the Senate will debate the text until February 4.
- Sunday, tens of thousands of opponents marched in Paris against the opening of the PMA to all women.
Will the Senate vote on the government's bioethics law? Held by a right-wing majority, the Upper House began examining the text on Tuesday, which should last until February 4. Two days earlier, several tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Paris against the extension of PMA to all women, the flagship measure of the project.
"No hysterization of the debate"
Before the meeting, the few elected officials present in the conference room however praise a peaceful atmosphere within the Senate. “We had enriching exchanges in special committee. There is no hysterization of the debate, even if a lot of votes will be played with few votes ”, summarizes Hervé Marseille, elected Hauts-de-Seine. The leader of the centrists thus welcomes the serenity surrounding the text. "The executive is not in the posture, unlike the socialist government and Christiane Taubira [then Minister of Justice] during the Marriage for All bill [in 2013], who wanted to make it a political marker" he said.
In front of a half-empty hemicycle, Agnès Buzyn thus tries to reassure the right wing of the Senate from the start of her speech. “There is not, there never has been and there will never be a right to a child. [It is a matter of] recognizing the family in what it has diverse, plural and rich ”, launches the Minister of Health, triggering some eddies in the spans.
Opposition on the right, but ...
Opposition to the text takes on a more concrete voice when Bruno Retailleau, boss of the LR group, warns his colleagues. “Something fundamental is playing out. It is not a confrontation between the right and the left. It is a clash between two models, the ultra-liberal Anglo-Saxon model, and the French approach, [which gives] first place to dignity ”. The senator of Vendée criticizes in particular the opening of the PMA to couples of women and single women. “This desire for a child cannot be exonerated from the duties we have towards the weakest, the most fragile. In this text, the one who takes all the risks is the child! ", He thunders, also denouncing" the risk of commodification "linked to the possibility of" freezing oocytes ".
However, on the right, several elected officials have already indicated that they are in favor of extending the PMA, like Alain Milon, the chairman of the special committee set up to examine the text. The president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, said that he was "quite open" to this campaign promise from Emmanuel Macron, but under conditions.
After a long debate in committee, the senators gave the first green light to the measure, while reserving its coverage by health insurance to heterosexual couples on medical criteria.
A muted debate, opponents of the text demonstrate outside the Senate
On this question as on others (reform of parentage and access to origins, self-preservation of oocytes, or research on embryonic stem cells), the outcome of the discussions promises to be indecisive. "Will the special committee be a perfect photograph of the debates in session? Nobody knows, but I hope so, because it is a successful text, ”replies the co-rapporteur, Olivier Henno.
The centrist senator from the North, like all parliamentarians, welcomes the respect for different opinions. “These are complex subjects, it is legitimate to ask questions. But nobody wants to relive the dramatization that we experienced at the wedding for all ”.
The critics are less muffled outside the Palais du Luxembourg. Around 7 p.m., opponents of the opening of the PMA to all women, including the Manif pour tous, made their voices heard, when article 1 was examined in plenary.
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- Senate
- Bioethics law
- LDCs