Lots of noise… then nothing. HAStwo sides of‘feminist associations, a large part of the French political class was moved by the historic decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to revoke the constitutional right to abortion, at the end of June. A decision qualified as “catastrophic” by the president of the LREM group in the Assembly, Aurore Bergé, and “tragedy” by his counterpart from La France insoumise, Mathilde Panot.
In the process, two bills were tabled between the end of June and the beginning of July by LREM deputies, then Nupes. A similar text had also been tabled in late June in the Senate by members of the left-wing coalition.
Two weeks later, activists and political leaders were nonetheless moved by the fact that none of these texts appeared on the agenda of the extraordinary session of the National Assembly, which runs until the beginning of August. Nor for that matter that of the extraordinary session of the Senate. “Elisabeth Borne, where has the long-promised text of the constitutionalization of the right to abortion gone?”thus launched Mathilde Panot, Wednesday, July 20, to the attention of the Prime Minister.
Support for the 17 US parliamentarians arrested for having defended the right to abortion.
We will never give up, there like here.@Elisabeth_Bornewhere did the long-promised text of constitutionalization of the right to#abortion ? https://t.co/IdDIri0IvP
— Mathilde Panot (@MathildePanot) July 20, 2022
In reality, this is not abnormal: the Constitution provides for a minimum period of six weeks between the filing of a text of law and its discussion in session. It was therefore theoretically not possible for Parliament to examine the text before the end of the extraordinary session.
Nevertheless, the government had a way to speed things up: table the text himself (a bill and not a private bill) to then initiate the accelerated procedure. This process, which makes it possible to remove the delay between the tabling and the examination of a text, is normally reserved for bills urgent, even if successive governments have tended to use it as a tool to cut short parliamentary debates. As he had promised in his program (in PDF)the accelerated procedure has also become the norm during Macron’s first five-year term.
This is also what the Socialist MP Laurence Rossignol had asked the Prime Minister on July 13, considering that the bill was “the most effective procedure”and that the text would find “a large majority”. “The parliamentary initiative procedure will not succeed, no one wants a referendum on access to abortion”she also pointed out.
Include abortion in the Constitution: “The government will support all parliamentary initiatives on this issue”, indicates @E_DupondM but it does not refer to a government bill #QAG pic.twitter.com/g6aHjuSCmA
— Public Senate (@publicsenat) July 13, 2022
In addition to the question of deadlines, the use of a bill from the executive, and not a bill from parliamentarians, changes the way in which this amendment to the Constitution could be adopted. In the case of a law proposal, the two assemblies must first vote on the text, before it is presented for the approval of the citizens by referendum.
A bill, once adopted by the Parliament, can be adopted by referendum or by the Parliament convened in Congress, with a majority of 3/5ths. All the amendments to the Constitution of the Fifth Republic were moreover adopted following the tabling of a bill.
But the government did not respond favorably to Laurence Rossignol’s request. At least for now. “Nothing prevents the government from regaining control at some point by passing a bill to avoid the referendum box”, reminded franceinfo of thea president of the Renaissance group of deputies, Aurore Bergé, at the beginning of July, insisting in passing on her desire to bring this text to fruition.
“The Prime Minister is in favor of this approach succeeding, there is a strong political will but, for the moment, we are on emergency texts”, however, underlines to franceinfo the entourage of the Minister for Relations with Parliament, Franck Riester, for whom “bandwidth” on this subject does not currently exist. In the absence of a bill, the text will therefore not be examined before the October parliamentary session, unless a new extraordinary session is scheduled by then.