Marine Brenier at the National Assembly in February 2021 -

J. Witt / Sipa

  • Marine Brenier, LR MP for Alpes-Maritimes for the 5th constituency since 2016, is one of the parliamentarians who support this bill.

  • 3,000 amendments, including 2,300 from elected Republicans, have been tabled jeopardizing the adoption of the text.

This Thursday, the National Assembly examines a text creating a right to euthanasia for people suffering from an incurable pathology.

Last week, the bill was adopted by the Social Affairs Committee guaranteeing the right to “a free and chosen end of life”.

Marine Brenier, LR MP for Alpes-Maritimes, is one of the seven parliamentarians who support this bill.

She carries a lot of hopes on this day despite the 3,000 amendments tabled, including 2,300 by a handful of elected officials from her own camp, which risk preventing the final vote on the text.

The elected returns with

20 Minutes

on the content of his fight for more than four years.

How do you see this day in the National Assembly?

I begin with an immense regret, that of having the feeling that a minority of deputies want to confiscate a substantive debate on a major subject.

It is for this reason that I signed with 271 other parliamentarians an article published in the

JDD

, to denounce this parliamentary obstruction.

The bill was tabled within the framework of a “niche” of the Freedoms and Territories group.

Time is therefore limited and the debates cannot go beyond midnight.

With this massive tabling of amendments, we can expect that we will not be able to go all the way and that there will not be a final vote.

So what are your expectations regarding this bill?

I have the ambition to believe that this day will show the government that Parliament has played its role in addressing a crucial issue for society.

A 2019 Ifop survey revealed that 96% of French people believed that French law should allow doctors to end, without suffering, the lives of people who request it.

The majority of elected officials are in favor of the text.

I hope that the government will respect this observation and give more legislative time to debate.

Moreover, with this recognition, we would no longer be obliged to go through "niches", which the opponents criticize.

It will be a way of moving forward despite everything.

What is certain is that we will not let go and that we will do everything to ensure that the text is tabled and studied quickly.

It would be a democratic denial not to take our proposals into account.

Many of us, from all political stripes, join us on the issue of end of life.

Why is this bill important to you?

This is a subject on which I have been working for a long time, already during the previous five-year term.

Elected MP, I tabled a bill on “active assistance in dying”.

I refocused on this question when the confinement began by meeting people who were working on the subject, doctors, patients, associations.

I also organized a parliamentary trip to Belgium, where this kind of text has been applied for almost twenty years, to see how it works.

Either I came back convinced, or I had doubts and I stopped everything.

Finally, with Jean-Louis Touraine, LREM deputy from the Rhône, we were pumped up to put this subject on the table in the National Assembly and work on it despite the opposition of the President of the Republic.

The mayor of Antibes, Jean Leonetti, co-author of the last two laws on the end of life, fears a “major transgression” with this text.

What do you think ?

I understand Jean Leonetti's arguments.

It is not a question of opposing these laws but of imagining several options and adding medical assistance in dying to palliative care.

The Claeys-Leonetti laws clarify the use of deep and continuous sedation, until death.

The

patient turns off on his own and it can last a long time.

With this bill, the will is to respond to all situations to avoid suffering caused by diseases, in particular incurable.

Any capable person of full age, in the advanced or terminal phase of a serious and incurable disease, whatever the cause, causing physical or psychological suffering which cannot be alleviated or which he considers unbearable, may request medical assistance for die by active help.

We don't take anything away, we don't force anyone, we just offer an additional right.

Politics

Despite MPs' activism, government pushes back end-of-life debate

Health

Why is a new debate on active assistance in dying needed in Parliament?

  • Society

  • Debate

  • National Assembly

  • Euthanasia

  • Law Project

  • Nice

  • Health