[Euthanasia in France #1] Summary of the current situation and timeline of euthanasia in France

[Summary of the current situation and timeline of euthanasia in France]

On May 27, 2025 , the French Chamber of Deputies approved the Euthanasia Bill.

For: 305 votes Against: 199 votes

The bill was passed by a large margin.

I had assumed that Japan's major media outlets (as they tend to favor opponents) would not report on the story and would impose a ``minor'' level of information censorship , but it seemed that most of them, except for the Asahi Shimbun, were reporting on it.

As an aside, the Mainichi Shimbun and the Kyoto Shimbun are well-known as media outlets that are firmly opposed to euthanasia .

IFOPとは、老舗・世論調査会社

As of July 2024, 84% of the public supported the euthanasia bill...and the majority of voters on both the left and right were in favor .

Senate deliberations were scheduled to begin in the fall on October 7th .

However, it has once again been postponed .

To explain why, let's look back at the long, long journey that has taken France to establish euthanasia .

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I'm sure people in Japan remember the news that Jean-Luc Godard , the world-famous French film director, voluntarily chose final medical treatment (so-called euthanasia) in Switzerland.

Shortly after this, discussions regarding end-of-life care and euthanasia in France began to make great progress.

After Godard's death, the French government held a large-scale " Convention citoyenne" ( Citizens' Convention ) to reflect the voices of its citizens, and representatives of the people engaged in careful debate over the course of several months . This was a bold attempt at democracy that would be unlikely to occur in Japan.

With this thorough preparation, it seemed as though the institutionalization would proceed smoothly.

[Summary of the current situation and timeline of euthanasia in France]

September 2022: Director Godard euthanized in Switzerland

French President Macron declares a citizens' assembly on that day

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・December 2022: Citizens' conference begins

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・April 2023: Citizens' Conference ends

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September 21, 2023: Euthanasia-related bill submitted to the Diet

Thirty seconds later, the results of the electronic voting were displayed on the screen.

125 votes were in favor, which is 75% of the voters.

67% of people said that " euthanasia should be permitted for minors ."

終末期医療を学ぶためのセミナーも随時開催

However, since September 2023, the bill has faced repeated delays .

The reason for the postponement is due to the following domestic and international circumstances:

• Coordinating Pope Francis' visit to France (diplomatic pressure)

• Response to the worsening situation in Ukraine (before the war began)

• Diplomatic Issues Related to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

• The government's priorities have changed suddenly, causing the end-of-life medical care bill to be postponed.

At the time, public opinion polls showed that 84% of the public supported the introduction of euthanasia . However, due to political schedules, the discussion did not move forward, and we ourselves gradually became pessimistic about whether it would ever be realized.

To make matters worse, on June 9, 2024, President Macron suddenly announced the dissolution of Parliament , and the final deliberations and votes scheduled for May of the same year were once again shelved.

This is despite the fact that the bill had progressed to the stage where a final vote was scheduled to take place in 10 days .

Since the announcement in September 2022 that "full discussions toward institutionalization would begin," the long-term stalemate has deepened public disappointment. As a result, some French citizens seeking euthanasia have been forced to travel to neighboring Belgium, where euthanasia has already been legalized.

While the overwhelming majority of the public, voters on both the right and left, and most of the major political parties are in favor of the bill, those opposed remain in the minority. The main opposition forces are as follows:

Political tensions over immigration policy are also a factor in preventing the passage of the euthanasia bill.

• Catholic Church and Religious Organizations

• Physician groups (especially in the hospice and palliative care fields)

• Far-right party National Rally (RN)

On July 20, 2024, the bill was resubmitted and deliberations resumed , but we were concerned that it would be postponed again, so we tried not to get our hopes up.

Furthermore, while news of the bill's progress has been a hot topic overseas, it has received little coverage in the Japanese media.

At the same time, the UK was also deliberating on a bill to introduce euthanasia , and it was thought that if both France and the UK decided to legalize it, it would mark a major turning point in global end-of-life medical policy . This is why we had such high hopes for this development.

Finally, on March 11, 2025, the Euthanasia Bill will be resubmitted to the National Assembly , and re-deliberation will officially begin on May 12 of the same year. As explained at the beginning , the bill will be approved by the House of Representatives on May 27 .

The bill was introduced by Olivier Faloni, a member of the National Assembly who has been a key figure in the cross-party movement for end-of-life care reform for many years and is highly respected in France.

www.assemblee-nationale.fr

Proposition de loi, n° 1100

This is the URL for France's euthanasia bill. I will introduce its contents in a separate post.

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However, before the bill could reach the Senate, it was postponed again and stalled due to political turmoil .

After the bill was passed by the House of Representatives, there was a series of political unrest , with a dispute over the budget, the prime minister resigning, and his successor also resigning .

Specifically, there are four:

① Prime Minister Bayrou clashes with parliament over the budget proposal

A motion of no confidence was passed in the House of Representatives → He resigned in September.

② His successor, Prime Minister Lecornu, also resigned soon after.

Lecornu became prime minister in September.

Due to difficulties in coordinating with the Diet, he resigned on October 6th , less than a month after taking office .

3) Partisan conflict is so intense that policy discussions are not functioning properly.

With each party eyeing the 2027 presidential election, they are avoiding compromise, and policy cooperation is not progressing.

4. The Diet schedule itself is in disarray due to short-term cabinet changes

Change of Prime Minister → Formation of New Cabinet → Policy Readjustment - This cycle repeats, and important bills are inevitably put off.

As mentioned above, in France, the overwhelming majority of voters across the political spectrum, both left and right, support euthanasia .

Despite this, the bill's deliberations have stalled.

Senate deliberations are tentatively scheduled to begin on January 12, 2026 , but given the history of repeated postponements, we cannot be too hopeful.

Some are arguing that if the process is delayed even early next year, a "national referendum" should be held.

The reason behind the delay in the passage of the bill is

• Catholic organizations

• Some medical associations

• Influence of political conservative forces

acts intermittently and strongly.

More recently, in January 2025, Prime Minister Bayrou ( a Catholic politician ) came under fire for plotting to delay the bill, raising complaints not only from the public but also from within Parliament.

Fanatic Catholic: Former Prime Minister Bayrou

*Video provided by the "Mufumufu" channel

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Since 2000, France has seen a series of incidents that have sparked considerable social debate regarding end-of-life care and euthanasia.

However, as in Japan , institutionalization has long stalled due to strong opposition from " a coalition of religious organizations and the medical community ."

ALS患者嘱託殺人など“ボヤ騒ぎ”に思えるぐらい凄惨な事件が相次いでいます

We plan to introduce the details of the incident in future articles, but it is an endless parade of inconsequential tragedies, such as the ``euthanasia incident'' involving Hayashi Yuri and Dr. Okubo.

However, each time they have been crushed by opposing groups , whose opposition is simply " nasty . "

Christian Bioethics (Doctrine) Over Individual Suffering

is regarded as absolute.

The results are as follows.

In 2024, 106 French people will travel to Belgium to be euthanized.

In reality, many people would have wished to die surrounded by their families in their hometowns .

101 people in 2023

53 people in 2022

Before that, the number was so high that the Belgian government had limited it to 20 people per year . However, due to delays in the establishment of France's euthanasia system, Belgium has opened its doors.

Finally, we have included a post by the French Euthanasia Association ADMD and a timeline of the history of euthanasia in France. Please feel free to use it as a reference.