Euthanasia: 3,000 amendments tabled in the Assembly, compromising the adoption

Some 3,000 amendments have been tabled on the controversial bill creating a right to euthanasia for people suffering from an incurable disease.

This should prevent its adoption Thursday by the National Assembly and anger many deputies, but also the embarrassment of the government.

Of these 3,000 amendments, 2,300 come from LR deputies.

Some 3,000 amendments have been tabled on the controversial bill creating a right to euthanasia for people suffering from an incurable disease, which is likely to prevent its adoption Thursday by the National Assembly and arouses anger many deputies from all sides.

Consideration of all amendments impossible

Of these 3,000 amendments, 2,300 come from LR deputies opposed to this text establishing a "right to a free and chosen end of life" for deputy Olivier Falorni (Liberties and Territories group), provided for within the framework of the parliamentary niche attributed to his group , we learned Saturday from parliamentary sources.

This large number of amendments, if they are well defended by their authors Thursday in the hemicycle, will make it mechanically impossible to examine their totality on a single day.

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In a tribune in the

Journal du Dimanche

, 270 deputies from all sides protested: "we want to debate. We want to vote. The time for Parliament has come. Let us respect it", plead these parliamentarians in favor of the bill, led by Jean-Louis Touraine, Yaël Braun-Pivet (LREM), Marine Brenier (LR) and four presidents of political groups, Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI), Valérie Rabault (PS), Olivier Becht (Agir) and Bertrand Pancher (Libertés et territories).

"Our fellow citizens are calling out to us, waiting for us to discuss it"

"This question has been running through our society for forty years. Several texts have been tabled in the Assembly and in the Senate since 2017. Our fellow citizens are calling out to us, waiting for us to debate it and, for the majority of them, for us to adopt it. ", add these deputies, including some 150 LREM.

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"A quarteron of deputies claim by parliamentary obstruction prevent the Assembly from debating on a major social issue", had denounced Friday Olivier Falorni, whose bill had passed a first milestone by being adopted Wednesday evening in committee.

"The shameful obstruction of LR will prevent the vote Thursday of the law on the end of life", denounced Saturday in a press release Matthieu Orphelin, former member of the group Freedoms and territories, stressing that "alone, 5 deputies The Republicans (Xavier Breton, Patrick Hetzel, Julien Ravier, Frédéric Reiss and Marc Le Fur) tabled more than 2,158 amendments ".

Go further than the Claeys-Leonetti law

Olivier Falorni's text wants to provide a new response to the painful and sensitive debate on the end of life and euthanasia, five years after the Claeys-Leonetti law, which authorizes deep and continuous sedation.

In committee, Olivier Falorni, a former socialist, recognized that his text addressed "existential questions".

Opening a right to "the ultimate freedom" to decide on medically assisted death would make it possible to respond to a "hypocrisy": letting people go into "exile" in Belgium or Switzerland to have recourse to it, and close their eyes to the "2,000 to 4,000" clandestine euthanasia practiced each year in France "sometimes without the knowledge of relatives" of the sick, according to him.

Godmother of the association for the right to die with dignity (ADMD), the singer Line Renaud published on Saturday an open letter for the attention of the deputies, urging them to give "to each and everyone the possibility of choosing their end of life". 

Government embarrassment

The subject divides all parliamentary groups and causes embarrassment of the government.

Some opponents believe that such a subject cannot be debated in the reduced time of a parliamentary niche when others are radically hostile to the measure for philosophical and religious principles.