France set to approve assisted dying bill for terminally ill adults

France’s National Assembly was due to give final approval Wednesday to a bill letting adults with incurable illnesses receive lethal medication, but only if they can express themselves in a free and informed manner and if their physical pain is unresponsive to treatment or, in the patient’s view, unbearable. The measure, part of Emmanuel Macron’s wider second-term agenda, would move France closer to countries that allow assisted dying while drawing a stricter line than the Netherlands and Belgium.

The path to that final vote stretched across 14 years of parliamentary battles, which the bill’s author, Olivier Falorni, described as “a marathon with hurdles.” The proposal had already cleared the Assembly on May 27, 2025, by 305 votes to 199, then again in February 2026 by 299 to 226, before a third approval on June 30, 2026, by 295 to 232. A separate bill on end-of-life medical assistance, including palliative care, passed alongside it in the earlier process without opposition.

The Senate, dominated by the traditional right, rejected the assisted-dying text, but the government allowed the lower house to have the final say under constitutional rules. That procedural path was central to getting the legislation this far after years of deadlock, even as the measure remained one of the most divisive social reforms before Parliament.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has since asked the Constitutional Council to review the legislation, adding a further legal test after the Assembly’s final say. The political resistance has been led by major figures on the right, including Senate speaker Gérard Larcher and former interior minister Bruno Retailleau, both of whom opposed the bill in the name of Les Républicains.

Supporters have presented the legislation as a major societal shift, but its eligibility rules are narrow by design. Only adults with an incurable condition who can make a free and informed decision would qualify, and the law would apply only when treatment cannot ease suffering or the patient judges the pain unbearable. That balance of restriction, safeguards and compromise is what allowed the bill to advance after years when the issue seemed locked in Parliament.