Emmanuel Macron probably wanted to make an impression to make people forget the protest against his pension reform.

The President of the Republic announced, Wednesday, March 8, on the occasion of International Women's Rights Day and a tribute to feminist lawyer Gisèle Halimi, his intention to register the voluntary termination of pregnancy ( IVG) in the French Constitution.

"The progress resulting from the parliamentary debates (...) will, I hope, make it possible to include this freedom in our fundamental text within the framework of the bill revising our Constitution which will be prepared in the coming months", declared Emmanuel Macron at the Paris courthouse.

The news, which surfs on a constitutional bill passed in November in the National Assembly and in February in the Senate - but in different terms - was applauded by feminist associations, who saw it as a "victory".

But the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution is in reality far from certain.

>> To read also: "Tribute to Gisèle Halimi: Macron announces a bill to include abortion in the Constitution"

A government bill rather than a bill from parliamentarians has the advantage of being able to be voted on by Parliament meeting in Congress, with a three-fifths majority, rather than going through a referendum considered more dangerous.

On the other hand, unlike parliamentarians, the Head of State does not intend to propose a bill specific to abortion, but a broader reform of institutions, which could range from a redrawing of regions to a redefinition of mandates. elections, according to the presidential entourage.

Emmanuel Macron, himself, had mentioned, in an interview with the magazine Le Point in April 2022, the possibility of returning to the seven-year term with mid-term elections to decouple the presidential and legislative elections.

The conditions for modifying the Constitution "never so few met since 1962"

But this way of doing things, which consists in drowning the constitutionalization of abortion in the middle of many other measures, could be badly experienced by the opposition, who would feel that their hand is being forced.

"Emmanuel Macron is taking a first step and that's a good thing. But if he wants to try to make us accept things we don't agree with, such as a return to the seven-year term or a simple dose of proportionality, it's This is the insurance of failure and he will be personally responsible for it", warns the rebellious deputy Mathilde Panot, who brought the proposed constitutional law on abortion to the National Assembly.

It indeed appears today as a challenge to imagine Emmanuel Macron achieving a constitutional reform bringing together three-fifths of Parliament with a Palais Bourbon without an absolute majority and also divided.

>> To read also: "The inclusion of the right to abortion in the French Constitution, a journey strewn with pitfalls"

“It seems totally hypothetical, even judge Benjamin Morel, professor of public law at the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas. The conditions for modifying the Constitution have never been so few since 1962. The Senate and the National Assembly n do not have the same political color and the presidential party does not even have an absolute majority in the Assembly. When Nicolas Sarkozy significantly reformed the Constitution in 2008, he had behind him a fairly large majority in the Senate and in the National Assembly, and yet, it passes with one vote."

Emmanuel Macron had himself broken his teeth with a draft revision of the Constitution presented in 2018, during his first five-year term.

This reform was to introduce a dose of proportional representation in legislative elections, reduce the number of parliamentarians by 30%, limit the accumulation of mandates over time and abolish the Court of Justice of the Republic.

The Benalla affair, in the summer of 2018, brought the reform to a halt.

This was reintroduced in 2019, before being definitively buried by the Covid-19 crisis.

Has the head of state learned the lesson?

Emmanuel Macron received his predecessors, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, in early February to discuss the subject.

He aims, according to our information, to set up a cross-party commission.

Already mentioned during the presidential campaign, this commission would aim "to seek consensus, like that already existing on the question of abortion", indicates the Elysée.

"Freedom" rather than "right" to abortion

A method that leaves the opposition doubtful, especially since, even on abortion, the voices of the left are not acquired.

The Senate with a right-wing majority voted in favor of the inclusion in the Constitution of the "freedom of women" to resort to abortion, a formulation which abandons the notion of "right" to abortion favored by the left in the National Assembly.

However, it is indeed the senatorial version that Emmanuel Macron took over on Wednesday afternoon.

Behind the semantics, the issue is not insignificant.

There is at Emmanuel Macron the will to satisfy the senators Les Républicains, but the replacement of "right" by "freedom" has legal consequences, considers Mathilde Panot.

>> To see: "Inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution: the National Assembly votes 'for'"

“It is unfortunate and dangerous that Emmanuel Macron is basing himself on the version of the Senate, she regrets. There was a very strong attachment in the National Assembly to reaffirming that abortion is a fundamental right of women. With the word 'freedom', we weaken the text."

An opinion that Benjamin Morel does not share, for whom access to abortion would be guaranteed with the two formulations.

"The difference between 'right' and 'freedom' is that the Senate version specifies that the terms of abortion depend on Parliament, while the 'right' to abortion as written in the text of the National Assembly would give the Constitutional Council the power to intervene on the conditions of access to abortion", he explains.

A debate and a constitutional reform which could ultimately come under political tactics, given the little chance of seeing the Constitution actually revised.

Contacted, the Élysée remains silent on the content of the constitutional reform envisaged, as on the timetable and the way in which the cross-party commission would be composed.

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