the Minister of Solidarity expresses his reluctance on active assistance in dying

A law on active assistance in dying, as envisaged by Emmanuel Macron, risks sending a dangerous message to vulnerable people, estimated, Thursday, June 22, the Minister of Solidarity, Jean-Christophe Combe, on a line already expressed by his Health counterpart, François Braun.

“Active assistance in dying is not just an individual, medical or philosophical issue”, judged Christophe Combe in an interview published Thursday evening on the Figaro site. “We must be very vigilant about the signal we send to people who feel fragile or desperate and to their families”, he insisted.

End of life bill

These remarks come as the government, at the request of President Emmanuel Macron, is working for the start of the school year in September on a bill on the end of life. This must take into account the conclusions of a citizens’ convention which came out at the beginning of the year for the conditional legalization of “active assistance in dying”, a term which potentially includes assisted suicide or ‘euthanasia. Emmanuel Macron, however, did not explicitly commit to legalizing such aid, referring to the establishment of a “French model” of end of life and sending the details to the government and parliamentarians.

Jean-Christophe Combe is the second minister to express his reservations after his Health counterpart, François Braun, who ruled in April that legalizing active assistance in dying “would profoundly change our society and our relationship to death”. Outside the government, François Bayrou, an eminent member of the majority, has said that he opposes “a public service to kill”.

A law enacting active assistance in dying “Would above all risk tipping us into another relationship to vulnerability”, added Thursday Jean-Christophe Combe. “The risk we need to avoid is the implicit message that could lead vulnerable people to self-effacement.”