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This Wednesday afternoon, senators will have to decide on the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution.

The debates promise to be tense at the Palais du Luxembourg.

On the one hand, the government supported by the left in favor of this revision promised by Emmanuel Macron, on the other a part of the right and centrists still skeptical of the formulation adopted by the executive.

Suspense in the upper house: the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution comes up against the reluctance of the right on Wednesday during an undecided vote in the Senate, where some could try to slow down the reform by failing to be sufficiently numerous for it. dismiss.

The debates promise to be tense from 4:30 p.m. at the Palais du Luxembourg.

On the one hand, the government supported by the left in favor of this revision promised by Emmanuel Macron;

on the other, part of the right and centrists still skeptical of the formulation adopted by the executive.

“The law determines the conditions under which the freedom guaranteed to a woman to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy is exercised.”

The text submitted to the vote of the 348 senators struggles to convince the ranks of the senatorial majority, an alliance between The Republicans (LR) and the centrist group.

However, a favorable vote - and without modification - from the upper house is a prerequisite for this constitutional revision supported by 86% of French people, according to an Ifop poll from November 2022.

Modifying the supreme text is not simple: the National Assembly and the Senate must validate the reform identically, before the meeting of a Congress of Parliament in Versailles where a three-fifths majority will be required.

After the Assembly, almost unanimous at the end of January, the Senate vote is the most perilous stage of the process: the three leaders of the senatorial majority - the president of the Senate Gérard Larcher, the boss of the LR group Bruno Retailleau and that of the group centrist Hervé Marseille - are in fact opposed to the reform.

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Congress on hold

“There is no threat to abortion in France,” insists Bruno Retailleau.

“The government cannot impose a timetable on us in defiance of the parliamentary debate,” he continues to AFP, still scalded by the agenda put forward at the end of 2023 by Emmanuel Macron.

The president had planned to convene Congress on March 4, which implied a Senate vote without editorial changes... Nothing worse to offend the senatorial right.

Since then, the executive has remained silent on the agenda, even if a government source confirms that March 4 is still a “preferred scenario”.  

"We will take the time it takes", repeats the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti over and over, assuring that France would become "the first country in the world to protect (constitutionally) the freedom of women to dispose of their body", while this is called into question in the United States or in certain European countries.

Associations defending women's rights such as groups opposing abortion have increased initiatives in recent days to convince senators.

Several pro and anti-constitutionalization rallies are announced near the Senate in the afternoon.

In the ranks of the right, social or family pressure has swung certain votes: in private, several senators recognize that they have changed their minds and will not oppose the reform, suggesting a clear majority in favor of the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution.

The LR president of the Hauts-de-France region Xavier Bertrand also urged his political family not to “fight the wrong fight”, in an article published in Elle magazine.

Amendments

The question is above all whether the text will be modified, which would force the Assembly to take it up again and postpone the reform timetable.

“There is no opposition to constitutionalization, provided that it is done properly,” summarizes rapporteur Agnès Canayer, appointed by the LR group.

The latter questions the notion of “guaranteed freedom”.

An amendment to delete the word "guarantee", in favor of a simple "freedom", is thus defended by part of the right and the centrists... This wording had already been approved by the Senate in February 2023.

“The only objective: to make the text fail,” protested the ecologist Mélanie Vogel, determined like the entire left to obtain adoption without modification.

Around thirty LR senators are also carrying another amendment to include in the Constitution the conscience clause of doctors, not required to perform abortion if they do not wish to do so.

Will they manage to bring together a majority of senators?

“I have doubts,” admits an LR elected official well aware of the balance of power.

Enough to reignite the suspense.