Emmanuel Macron must specify this Tuesday the contours of the citizens’ convention on the end of life, which could precede a law, with in main questioning a possible authorization of euthanasia, already authorized in several European countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and more recently Spain. Where is France on the issue?
What is allowed today?
Today, it is the Claeys-Leonetti law which governs the end of life of terminally ill patients in France. Adopted in 2016, after a first version in 2005, it allows a “deep and continuous sedation until death” for terminally ill patients in very great suffering, whose vital prognosis is engaged “short term”. On the other hand, she prohibits euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The Claeys-Leonetti law also provides for the cessation of processing in the event of “unreasonable obstinacy” (Where therapeutic relentlessness): if the patient wishes, the treatments can be “suspended” when they “appear useless, disproportionate or when they have no other effect than the sole artificial maintenance of life”. If the patient cannot express his wishes, the decision must be taken by the doctors in a “collegiate”. The value of “advance directives” formulated by patients before they were no longer able to express their wishes was also reinforced by this text.
“No country in the world takes the Claeys-Leonetti law as a reference, it is a law that is flawed and that generates unbearable situations, denounces the deputy of Charente-Maritime Olivier Falorni on France Bleu La Rochelle. This is the logic of letting-die. We plunge the person into a coma and we stop hydration and nutrition. You let it slowly die. This situation is not possible and it does not in any way address the issue of degenerative diseases for example”.
In 2018, the Council of State and then the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) ruled that this law should not be amended. Both, however, underlined the need to ensure a better access to palliative care.
In April 2021, after a bill by MP Olivier Falorni, the National Assembly debated the subject again. His examination was unsuccessful because of thousands of amendments designed to obstructbut 240 deputies had approved the principle of a “active medical assistance in dying”.
Why a change?
As often in politics, public opinion precedes legal texts. Thus in April 2021, according to a study by the FIFG, 89% of French people approved the authorization of assisted suicide for people with incurable diseases. 87% of those questioned also considered it urgent to legislate on the end of life. Last February, shortly before the presidential election, three out of four French people wanted the legalization of active assistance in dying to appear in the candidate program, again according to an IFOP poll. “Today, public opinion is ready” estimated on France Bleu La Rochelle this Monday Olivier Falorni, Charentais-Maritime deputy.
Thus during the face-to-face campaign, the Head of State had announced his desire to establish a “citizen agreement” for “to advance” on the subject “peacefully”. Thursday, Emmanuel Macron confirmed the forthcoming launch of this conventionconsidering that“we must move for more humanity”. He should therefore detail the method this Tuesday.
A sign that the debate is agitating society, the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) set up a working group in June 2021 to reflect on it again. It is also Tuesday that he must deliver his opinion.
Soon a new law?
On September 2, on the occasion of the presentation of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor to singer and actress Line Renaud (committed to the issue, she signed a column in the JDD in August alongside by Olivier Falorni), Emmanuel Macron said: “The right to die with dignity is a fight which resembles you and which obliges us“. “Now is the time to do it… We will do it”. A little after, “He was very clear and told me that the law would be in 2023“, confides Jean-Luc Romero-Michel to AFP. According to him, the conditions are met because the Head of State has“a huge majority” to vote on such a text. On Monday, the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet said she was waiting for “Parliament can be quickly seized of a text relating to the end of life”.
You have today in France people who are forced to go into exile in Belgium or Switzerland to die. Alas, we have more and more requests, more and more calls, more and more cries of alarm
For Jonathan Denis, president of the Association for the right to die with dignity (ADMD), invited this Monday on France Bleu Mayenne, it is simply a question for parliamentarians of “don’t close your eyes.” According to him “Today you have people in France who are forced to go into exile in Belgium or Switzerland” to die. “Alas, we have more and more requests, more and more calls, more and more cries of alarm. We do not open our eyes to what should be done, that is to say say a new law”. He denounces on the question “a real lack of political courage” in France.
Despite the good intentions displayed by the Head of State, he regrets a new agreement : “We have already lost time because of the conventions, there have been a lot of them”, he recalls. “We’re really going to have to move forward”. “My office is filled with reports, opinions, consultations”, confirms MP Olivier Falorni.
According to the ADMD president, “We listened a little too much to religious representatives. By dint of wanting to impose their ideas on others all the time, these people have created a society where we are absolutely no longer advancing and where we leave people on the side of the road “.