Emmanuel Macron endorses the bill on “assisted dying”

2024-03-11 09:02:23
The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, at the Elysée, March 7, 2024. CHRISTOPHE ENA / AFP

Two daily newspapers for one bill. Emmanuel Macron assumes for the first time, in an interview given to The cross et Release, published Sunday March 10, the content of the legislative text which will open “the possibility of requesting assistance in dying under certain strict conditions”. The head of state specifies the parliamentary calendar. The project “will arrive on the table of the Council of Ministers in April, for a first reading in May”, he commits. He thus decides in favor of a debate which will open in the National Assembly before the European elections on June 9. Monday morning, Gabriel Attal spoke of the text arriving at the National Assembly on May 27.

Expressing oneself in the columns of newspapers with such distinct editorial lines is, in the eyes of the Head of State, the mark of his ability to reconcile positions on a subject which potentially fractures society. Since September 2022, the same ambition of a “peaceful debate” led him to assume ” to take [son] temps » on a subject ” intimidating “, he confided again on February 8, during a dinner at the Elysée with representatives of religions.

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If the Head of State has allowed the debate to permeate society, the text he defends in his interview surprisingly seems to have been frozen in its current state a few months ago. The bill he details looks exactly like the one tabled on his desk in October 2023 by Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, then deputy minister responsible for health professions.

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The similarities between the announcements of the Head of State and the copy made in the fall – to which the world had access – then came as a surprise that the entourage of the Head of State, his interlocutors, representatives of religions all attested to the ” doubt “ of the president, raised his “hesitations” even its “trembling hand” when refereeing.

Feigned or real dilemma? The head of state is now confident: “My hand is not shaking. (…) I’m pretty sure of the path we’re taking.” he confides. What does the reluctance expressed by part of the medical world matter?

“This law is necessary”

Emmanuel Macron assumes his constancy, in particular to justify the establishment of assisted dying. “The Claeys-Leonetti law, which sets the current legal framework, did not make it possible to deal with very difficult human situations, he recalls. We can think of the cases of patients suffering from terminal cancer, some of whom are forced to go abroad to be supported. It was therefore necessary to go further. » The head of state insists: “This law is necessary because there are cases that we cannot humanly accept in our country today, which cause families, patients, medical teams to suffer. »

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