how did your deputies and senators vote before Congress?

Parliamentarians have a date with history on Monday March 4. The deputies and senators meet in Congress, at the Palace of Versailles, to approve the inclusion in the Constitution of the “freedom guaranteed” women to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion). If this constitutional revision is adopted, then France will become the first country to explicitly authorize abortion in its fundamental law.

To adopt a revision of the Constitution in Congress, the text must first have been adopted identically by both houses of Parliament. In the case of abortion, these preliminary votes took place on January 30 in the Assembly, then on February 28 in the Senate. Deputies and senators largely approved the text. Franceinfo returns to the details of the votes of parliamentarians.

In the National Assembly

At the Palais Bourbon, the constitutional reform was approved by 493 of the 577 deputies. All left-wing elected officials and almost all of the majority and the independent Liot group voted for. On the right, the LR group was divided with 40 votes for, 15 against and 4 abstentions. Ditto for the National Rally (46 for, 12 against and 14 abstentions).

“This evening the Assembly and the government did not miss their meeting with the history of women, (…) with history in general”had greeted Eric Dupond-Moretti, the Minister of Justice, cited by The Express. Questioned by France 3, deputies from the Republicans and the National Rally justified their refusal or abstention by the fact that this constitutionalization was not necessary in their eyes.

These elected officials were also concerned that this reform would lead to the extension of the legal duration for an abortion or to the creation of an enforceable right which calls into question the conscience clause of caregivers refusing to perform abortion. This argument, also put forward by the pro-life movement Alliance Vita, was defeated by the rapporteur of the text, recalls TV5 Monde. “This bill does not create an enforceable right,” insisted MP Guillaume Gouffier Valente.

In the Senate

At the Luxembourg Palace, on the evening of Wednesday February 28, senators adopted this reform by an overwhelming majority: 267 votes for and 50 against. The upper house was the hardest to convince. In 2022, the Senate rejected a transpartisan bill which already called for the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Constitution. The text encountered opposition from elected officials from the right and center majority. Two years later, the majority swung in favor of revision.

Among the few opponents of the text are the leaders of the right and the center. The president of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, and that of the centrists, Hervé Marseille, both voted against the project. The vote of the senators from the right and the center also sounded like a disavowal for Gérard Larcher, the LR president of the Senate. As is tradition, the president of the upper house did not take part in the vote, but he has always expressed his opposition to the constitutionalization of abortion.