As a prelude to a journey that could last up to two years, the end-of-life bill arrives on Monday, April 22, at the Assembly, where the special committee will conduct hearings for a month and examine the text and its amendments, in a political climate that everyone wishes to be “peaceful”.
The start of the legislative marathon around this major societal reform of Macron’s second five-year term will be given on Monday at 6:00 p.m. First on the line, the Minister of Health Catherine Vautrin who, according to those around her, intends to engage in an “educational exercise”, explaining in particular “how we achieved a balance” on this highly sensitive text.
Will follow, among others, representatives of the medical profession on Tuesday, worship services on Wednesday, associations on Thursday, or even psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, former ministers and parliamentarians such as Alain Claeys and Jean Leonetti, authors of the last major law on the end of life.
“We have to know how to listen to everyone, to all opinions. The important thing is that we can offer our colleagues a wide enough panel of actors” to make an informed choice, the president of the Agnès Firmin Le Bodo commission (Horizons).
21 articles and amendments tabled
Then, from May 13, the 71 members of this commission will get to the heart of the text, dissected through its 21 articles and the amendments tabled, before the hemicycle takes up the revised project, from the 27 may.
At the heart of the questions is the fact of offering certain patients the means of committing suicide and, when they are incapable of carrying out the fatal gesture, of doing it for them.
The conditions will be very strict: this “assisted death” will be reserved for adult patients, born in France or residing in the country for a long time, and able to clearly express their wishes. The text “excludes psychiatric illnesses”, the minister specified in particular.
It will also be necessary to experience intolerable and impossible to treat suffering, physical or psychological. Finally, the vital prognosis must be undertaken in the short or medium term.
“Respect for beliefs”
Two weeks after the presentation of the text in the Council of Ministers, “we enter the parliamentary debate on Monday, the last step before what I hope will be a great republican law of progress and humanity, a law which will be a landmark”, pleads with from AFP the commission’s rapporteur Olivier Falorni (MoDem).
While the rest of the work in the Assembly is on break this week – holidays required – the deputies of the committee will be able to “concentrate solely on the subject”, welcomes Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, who approaches the exchanges “in a calm manner “, because “it is the will of everyone”. In an Assembly where the situation of relative majority has exacerbated passions, the question of the climate of debates will be central.
“The deputies are aware that it will be closely watched and closely followed. You are not going to throw yourself into an arena like for a PSG-OM”, metaphorizes the Insoumise Caroline Fiat, who will be one of the four thematic co-rapporteurs of the law. “We can disagree but we have to be careful with the words we say,” she warns again.
Gabriel Attal also called for “greater respect for everyone’s convictions”, hoping that the deputies “manifest the sense of responsibility” due “to patients and families”. In this intimate subject, the political groups announced that no voting instructions would be given. The left and the presidential camp should represent the majority of support for its controversial section on assisted dying in the face of the hostility which dominates on the right and the extreme right.
Marine Le Pen said she hoped to “convince the deputies of the National Rally that the path chosen by the government is an easy one because it ignores the deficiencies in the field of palliative care”, which constitutes another part of the law.
While the subject risks awakening strong ethical and religious divisions, the deputies will also have to deal with the atmosphere outside the walls of the Palais Bourbon. Illustration of the tensions, the philosopher Elisabeth Badinter announced on Sunday in La Tribune that her late husband Robert Badinter, former Minister of Justice who initiated the abolition of the death penalty, would have voted for this law, contrary to what some opponents say.