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Recently, the French National Assembly voted on passing a bill legalising assisted dying. This marks the next phase in a year-long debate on euthanasia and assisted dying. The National Assembly voted in favour of the bill to legalise assisted dying in May 2025, but the French Senate rejected it and sent it back for further reconsideration about eight months later. Iterations to the bill have been made since, with the debate returning to the French parliament earlier in Jan, and a final vote held on Feb 25. The final vote on the bill was 299 in favour and 226 against, with an absolute majority set at 263. Ironically, the accompanying bill on palliative care was also unanimously passed at the same time.
With steps closer to legalising assisted dying, the euthanasia bill adopts the assisted dying model, making self-administration of the lethal substance the rule and assistance from a third party the exception if the individual is unable to self-administer. This would only be available to those who meet strict eligibility criteria, which require them to be over 18 years of age, residing in France, and suffering from a life-threatening incurable illness in a terminal stage. Individuals will also need to express their wish to end their lives. If this sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve seen the same course of action here at home.
Currently, the Léonetti Law of 2005 regulates end-of-life care, permitting individuals to refuse “futile medical care” and to access palliative treatment. In 2016, the Claeys-Léonetti Law expanded these provisions, allowing deep and continuous sedation until death under specific conditions, applicable when the patient suffers unbearably and death is deemed inevitable and imminent.
Olivier de Margerie, the president of Accompanying Life Until Death, is concerned that presenting assisted suicide as an individual liberty risks pressuring people with terminal illnesses. Mr de Margerie argues that:
“introducing the possibility of ending one’s existence — where society organises and facilitates the process — is a direction that will, in the fairly short term, lead to a reduction in the financial, political and technical efforts to develop palliative care that is available everywhere and accessible to everyone in France.”
He’s right. Once the state normalises assisted suicide and society accepts it as normal and routine healthcare, investment in compassionate alternatives inevitably declines.
Australian bioethicist and author Xavier Symons also cautions that lawmakers in different countries considering euthanasia might underestimate how eligibility criteria could broaden over time. He notes:
“The biggest risk is establishing a ‘right to die’ that could extend far beyond terminal illness, thus allowing access to euthanasia to any group that wants it,” he said. “This includes people with mental illness, people with chronic illnesses, and even people tired of life. If it is claimed that some people have the right to euthanasia, it is difficult to deny the conclusion that all people have the right to euthanasia.”
And this is the exact pattern we are seeing in different jurisdictions like France’s neighbours, the Netherlands and Belgium, and let’s not forget Canada, where assisted suicide (they call it medical assistance in dying) is the fifth leading cause of Canadian deaths. Not forgetting that each of these countries often begins with restrictions on assisted suicide, only for expansion to follow slowly and quite drastically.
Now, whilst the French National Assembly just passed the bill again, overriding the Senate’s earlier rejection and sending it back to the Senate, which is largely conservative. But the pressure to adopt euthanasia is intensifying, and France is yet another nation on the brink of institutionalising and normalising the idea that the sanctity of life only matters for some and not others.
France’s debate will be a crucial one to follow. It highlights how rapidly a society can move from defending life to enabling death – and underscores the importance of consistently advocating for genuine compassion, true dignity, and quality palliative care, rather than state-approved killing.
This article was originally published by Family First New Zealand.
