Emmanuel Macron wants a bill for "a French model" on the end of life

French President Emmanuel Macron poses with the report of the Citizens' Convention on the end of life, April 3, 2023 at the Elysee Palace in Paris © Aurelien Morissard / AP

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The head of state announced on Monday, April 3, that he expected the government to draft a bill on the end of life in France "by the end of the summer", receiving the conclusions of the Citizens' Convention which voted for "active assistance in dying", but under conditions.

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Wishing to set up a "French model of the end of life", Emmanuel Macron has returned to the government and parliamentarians the task of defining its content, but by setting limits. Among them, the need to "guarantee the expression of the free and enlightened will", the "reiteration of choice", "the incurability of refractory, psychological and physical suffering, even the commitment of the vital prognosis".

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You rightly insist that active assistance in dying should never be carried out for a social reason, to respond to the isolation that can sometimes make a patient feel guilty when he knows he is condemned to term, "added the French president, who also closed the door to any aid in dying for minors. It is now up to the government and parliamentarians to carry out in a "transpartisan" way a "work of co-construction, on the basis of this solid reference which is that of the Citizens' Convention and in connection with all stakeholders", added the French president, calling for a "draft law by the end of summer 2023".

LIVE | Reception of the members of the Citizens' Convention on the End of Life. https://t.co/NgZtgfYgAX

— Elysée (@Elysee) April 3, 2023

Investments in palliative care

He announced the "necessary investments" to feed a "ten-year plan" on palliative care, denounced as insufficient by the Convention. It was "an absolute priority," says Claire Fourcade, president of the French Society for Accompaniment and Palliative Care. "There is a political will, we will now be extremely vigilant to see how this will is applied." Emmanuel Macron recalled having himself "a personal opinion that can evolve", but also as head of state "a responsibility of concord and a desire for appeasement".

The French president had received in the morning the 184 members of the Convention, citizens chosen by lot who participated for three months in intense debates on the subject. In a report validated Sunday, the Convention answered "yes" to three-quarters to "active assistance in dying", specifically assisted suicide or euthanasia, with significant restrictions.

The current legislation, set by the Claeys-Leonetti law of 2016, allows caregivers to irreversibly sedate patients close to death, whose suffering is intolerable. But it does not go so far as to authorize assisted suicide (the patient administers the lethal product himself) or euthanasia (a caregiver injects it).

► Read also: A brief history of euthanasia and assisted suicide since antiquity

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