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France’s National Assembly has passed a law legalizing “aid in dying,” permitting assisted suicide and, in exceptional cases, euthanasia. The law will still go before the Constitutional Council, while medical circles and the Church have announced continued opposition.

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291 deputies voted in favor, 241 against, and 29 abstained. This was the fourth vote on the text in the lower house; the Senate, where the center-right holds a majority, had previously rejected the proposal three times.

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The law will not take effect immediately. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Senate President Gérard Larcher have announced that they will refer it to the Constitutional Council, which will examine whether the adopted provisions conform to the French Constitution.

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Medical circles, pro-life organizations, and the Bishops’ Conference of France protested against the regulation; the latter warns that the criteria for access to “aid in dying” — as the experience of other countries shows — tend to broaden over time.

On Wednesday, July 15, 2026, France’s National Assembly definitively passed the law on the “right to aid in dying” (droit à l’aide à mourir), legalizing, for the first time in the country’s history, assisted suicide and, in some cases, euthanasia. The vote is the culmination of a process initiated by President Emmanuel Macron, who as far back as his 2022 election campaign had promised to open a “path” to assisted death for the French. The legislative work, interrupted by the dissolution of the National Assembly in 2024, resumed in the spring of 2025, splitting the matter into two separate texts: a law on palliative care and a law on “aid in dying.” While the former raised no major controversy, the latter divided the French political class.

What exactly was voted on?

The adopted law introduces into the French Public Health Code a new “individual right” — the possibility of obtaining a lethal substance for a person who cumulatively meets five conditions. First, the applicant must be of legal age. Second, they must hold French citizenship or reside permanently and legally in France. Third, they must suffer from a serious and incurable illness, regardless of its cause, that is life-threatening and either in an advanced phase — understood as having entered an irreversible process of deteriorating health that diminishes quality of life — or in a terminal phase. Fourth, they must experience suffering related to that illness that is resistant to treatment, or unbearable in the patient’s own assessment when they have refused or discontinued therapy. The law expressly stipulates, moreover, that psychological suffering alone in no case confers a right to make use of “aid in dying.”

As a rule, the patient is to administer the lethal substance themselves (assisted suicide). If, however, the patient is not physically able to do so, the substance will be administered by a physician or a nurse — which in practice means that euthanasia is permitted. Those taking part in the procedure have been exempted from criminal liability. In the course of the legislative work, critics drew attention to the vagueness of the concept of an “advanced phase,” the short procedural deadlines, and the risk of pressure being exerted on the elderly, the sick, and people with disabilities.

Who voted, and how?

The law was supported by the left and a large part of the center, while the decisive majority of the right — the Republicans and the National Rally — voted against it. The result of 291 to 241, with 29 abstentions, brings to a close an exceptionally turbulent legislative path: the National Assembly had passed the text successively in May 2025, February 2026, and June 2026, and the Senate had rejected it each time — most recently on July 7, 2026, by a vote of 169 to 164. Faced with the impasse, the government resorted to the “last word” mechanism of the lower house provided for in Article 45 of the French Constitution, which made it possible to pass the law definitively against the position of the Senate.

The process is not yet over. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has announced that he will refer three contested issues to the Constitutional Council: the deadline for a patient to withdraw a request, the situation of adults under legal protection, and the obligation imposed on all medical and care facilities to perform “aid in dying.” Senate President Gérard Larcher made an analogous announcement. The Council will have one month to rule.

How did the public react?

After the vote, President Macron declared that his 2022 commitment had been fulfilled, and the proponents of the change — led by the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (ADMD) — received the result with enthusiasm, pointing to opinion polls in which a majority of the French have for years declared support for this type of measure.

The circles opposing legalization assessed the outcome of the vote entirely differently. In a statement issued after the vote, the Bishops’ Conference of France spoke of sadness and concern, recalling that the experience of other countries shows a steady tendency to broaden the criteria for access to “aid in dying” at the expense of palliative care. The bishops also accused the legislature of resorting to euphemisms that obscure the true nature of the regulation and of ignoring the voices of palliative-care physicians, lawyers, and patients’ associations. The episcopate’s spokesman for end-of-life matters, Bishop Mathieu Rougé, announced support for legal action, including vigilance over the genuine freedom of care facilities to retain their own ethical charter. The association Alliance Vita, meanwhile, which is running a campaign under the slogan “We want care, not euthanasia”, warned in an open letter to the president against the pressure to which the elderly, the sick, and people with disabilities may be subjected. Particular concern is raised by the combination of the vague statutory conditions (especially the “advanced phase” of an illness) with the obligation imposed on all medical and care facilities. This raises the question of the actual scope of freedom of conscience — both individual and institutional (facilities, including faith-based care homes and hospices, are required to admit onto their premises external teams performing the procedure) — in a system in which “aid in dying” becomes an individual right of the patient. The experiences of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada, where originally narrow criteria have been progressively broadened, mean that assurances of “strict procedural safeguards” should be treated with caution, notes Aleksandra Siwek, an analyst at the Ordo Iuris Center for International Law.

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Source of cover photo: iStock