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The French National Assembly has approved a regulation granting the right to "assisted dying" to adults suffering from severe and incurable illnesses, passing the bill in a tight 291–241 final vote with 29 abstentions.
The new law allows eligible individuals who meet strict criteria to self-administer a lethal substance. If a patient is physically unable to carry out the procedure, the substance can be legally administered by a doctor or a nurse.
The text will now be reviewed by the Constitutional Council before officially entering into force across France.
According to an article by Oksijen, to benefit from the regulation, an individual must be at least 18 years old, a French citizen, or a regular and permanent resident of the country.
Under the approved framework, eligible patients must be in the advanced or terminal stage of a life-threatening, severe, and incurable illness. They must also experience physical or psychological suffering that treatments cannot relieve, or that they describe as completely unbearable.
Psychological suffering alone will not qualify an individual for the program. The patient must also be capable of expressing their decision freely, consciously, and entirely without external pressure.
The evaluating physician will lead a collaborative review process alongside a team of healthcare professionals, delivering an official decision within a maximum of 15 days.
If the application is approved, a mandatory reflection period of at least two days must pass, allowing the patient to reconfirm their intent. Furthermore, patients maintain the right to withdraw their request at any stage of the process.
Under the new law, healthcare professionals retain the right to conscientious objection, but they are legally obligated to refer the patient to another practitioner who accepts the request. The approved legislation also establishes a specialized control and evaluation commission to oversee all procedures.
The bill’s path to adoption was highly contested, having been rejected during three separate stages in the Senate. Because the two legislative chambers failed to agree on a unified text, the government invoked Article 45 of the French Constitution to grant the National Assembly the final vote.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has announced that he will refer the legislation to the Constitutional Council to verify the constitutionality of specific provisions. Due to this pending judicial review, the regulation has not yet entered into force. Once the council concludes its evaluation, the text must be officially promulgated by the president to become law.
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