End of life: Health Minister in favor of resuming the text as is

Parliamentary debates on the end of life, which will resume in early 2025, would do better to base themselves on the text already drawn up by the previous government and legislature, the Minister of Health said on Tuesday.

"Personally, I think that we can very well support the (...) text that has already been worked on in the National Assembly," declared Genevieve Darrieussecq on the Public Senat channel.

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In February, MPs are due to examine a text on the end of life, thus relaunching a series of issues that has been going on for several years on this particularly sensitive social subject.

The previous government, after long months of gestation, had put on the table a text providing for the legalization of assisted suicide and in certain cases, euthanasia, described as "active aid in dying". This text, which attached strict conditions, had reached the National Assembly but its examination was interrupted by the dissolution and the elections of mid-2024.

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The fate of this project is therefore in suspense, while the current government brings together the centre and the right, the latter being historically very reluctant to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Prime Minister Michel Barnier, himself from the right, has indeed decided to relaunch parliamentary debates. But there remains some uncertainty over the text that will serve as a basis for them.

The government could either present a new project or agree to join a proposal tabled this summer by MP Olivier Falorni (MoDem group), taking up the main points of the previous project for which he was the rapporteur.

"That would be the most logical thing since a debate has already started," said Ms Darrieussecq.

The minister nevertheless deferred to Mr Barnier's decision, stating that he was keeping "all options on the table" for the time being but was "not at all hostile to the resumption of the Falorni text".

Regarding the planned timetable, Ms Darrieussecq said she hoped the text would move forward "as quickly as possible" without committing to an adoption date.