Emmanuel Macron’s statement on the possible sending of ground troops to Ukraine is not the only French exception to have recently attracted the attention of the foreign press. In a completely different register, the inclusion of abortion in the Constitution at the beginning of March was widely welcomed outside France. “News of historic significance”, enthuses the Italian daily La Repubblica. “This decision “locks” the right to abortion – legal in France since 1975 – and will prevent future governments from limiting access to abortion unless they enter into conflict with the Constitutional Council,” welcomes the progressive newspaper , who regrets the decline in this right in Italy or the United States.
It is “a strong signal that France is sending to the world”, says the daily Die Welt. “The modification of the French fundamental law does not fall from the sky. It is a reaction to the decision of the American Supreme Court which annulled the federal right of American women to abortion a year and a half ago, recounts the newspaper German President Macron […] shows a determination that Germany could learn from.”
Especially since, exceptionally, this question was the subject of a broad consensus, notes the New York Times. “The Vatican and the French Bishops’ Conference opposed the amendment, as did anti-abortion activist groups. But in France, a country where calls for demonstrations regularly bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets, the opposition was particularly rare”, points out the New York daily.
This time, France, “which likes to consider itself a beacon of civic and social progress”, can congratulate itself on being at the forefront, summarizes El País. “In the recent past, France adopted so-called societal rights later than other countries. It abolished the death penalty in 1981, three years after Spain, and homosexual marriage, almost ten years later, recalls the Spanish newspaper. Today, this country, which displays its universal values, can pride itself on having been a pioneer.”