3:47 p.m. – STORY. The long road from the text to the final vote
It was during the 2022 presidential campaign that Emmanuel Macron committed to launching a consultation on the end of life. At the end of the year, after the publication of an opinion from the National Consultative Ethics Committee, he convened a Citizens’ Convention on the end of life, made up of 184 citizens drawn by lot. From their report, in April 2023, the first outlines of the “new end-of-life model” are emerging. A look back at the different stages which led up to the vote on Wednesday July 15.
3:30 p.m. – Euthanasia, assisted suicide… What are the differences?
A survey by the Flashs institute for LNA Santé, a private company which cares for people in situations of fragility or loss of autonomy, revealed that 40% of French people struggled to distinguish between assisted dying, euthanasia and assisted suicide. La Croix takes stock of the definition of these three notions with radically different ethical implications.
3:11 p.m. – A gap between the Assembly and Senate
The bill establishing a right to assisted dying went back and forth between the two chambers, which did not manage to agree, even during the joint committee which was held at the beginning of June. On the Assembly side, the deputies adopted it in May 2025 with 305 votes for, then last February with 299 votes for, and finally in June with 295 votes for.
On the contrary, the Senate systematically rejected the text. During its last examination, on July 7, senators voted by a narrow majority a motion to reject the bill, 169 votes against 164.
2:30 pm – A decisive vote
After several back and forths of the bill establishing a right to assisted dying between the National Assembly and the Senate, the government decided to give the last word to the lower house by including it on the agenda this Wednesday for a final reading. MEPs will no longer have the opportunity to table amendments.
The text submitted to the vote represents a break with the current legislative framework since it legalizes assisted suicide, which will be the rule. Euthanasia will be the exception, even if the words are never used.
It thus breaks with a founding principle of medicine and our society, that of the prohibition of killing. Article 2 of the text provides for the creation of a new right defined as that “for a person who has expressed a request to be authorized to use a lethal substance so that they can administer it to themselves or, when they are not physically able to do so, to have it administered by a doctor or nurse”.
Hello and welcome to this Live dedicated to the vote on the bill establishing a right to assisted dying, scheduled for this Wednesday, July 15 in the National Assembly.
