The gendarmerie conducted a dozen arrests throughout France on Tuesday morning of pro-euthanasia activists as part of a judicial investigation for trafficking in pentobarbital.

It is a powerful anesthetic banned in France since 1996 but used for assisted suicide.

The gendarmes carried out on Tuesday morning a series of simultaneous arrests throughout France of pro-euthanasia activists as part of a judicial investigation for trafficking in pentobarbital, an anesthetic banned in France since 1996 and used for assisted suicide.

The suspects are between 60 and 80 years old and they have exercised intellectual and medical professions: teacher, physiotherapist, psychologists.

They are now campaigning for the right to choose one's death within the Ultime Liberté association.

Justice is questioning their role in this barbiturate trafficking dismantled in 2019.

A judicial investigation opened last year

The gendarmes of OCLAESP, the central office for the fight against attacks on the environment and public health, had carried out a series of searches of 135 buyers of Nembutal in October 2019. The majority were elderly or well suffering from serious pathologies.

Some had decided to kill each other as a couple, others wanted to put aside the lethal dose for later.

Most of them had a link with pro-euthanasia associations and more particularly Ultime Liberté, an association which campaigns in favor of the right to choose one's death and which has nearly 3,000 members.

The Paris public prosecutor's office last year opened a judicial investigation for the smuggling of goods dangerous for public health, the illegal exercise of the profession of pharmacist and advertising in favor of products or methods allowing suicide.

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On Tuesday, the examining magistrate targeted a dozen activists particularly involved in the association.

According to information gathered by Europe 1, they are suspected of having helped other members to obtain lethal doses of barbiturate by giving them an encrypted email address to order the vials of Nembutal in the United States, for an average of € 650. .

However, any provocation to suicide is an offense punishable by 3 years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.

Ultimate freedom, an association with a very particular positioning

Another question at the heart of the matter, did the suspects themselves order bottles to then resell them to their members?

Heard as a witness at the end of 2019, the president of the association assured that Ultimate Freedom did not serve as an intermediary.

Ultime Liberté has a particular position in the landscape of associations favorable to euthanasia.

It is more radical than ADMD, the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity, which prefers to direct people at the end of their life to Switzerland or Belgium.

Ultime Liberté militates for the explicit recognition of "voluntary death" in French law.

The association has launched a petition which has collected more than 11,000 signatures to obtain that "any major French citizen can legally access a lethal dose".