Overview

• Lawmakers are debating a proposal that limits eligibility to adults over 18 who are French citizens or residents with a grave, incurable illness causing untreatable pain.
• The draft law requires a medical team’s verification and a reflection period before a doctor can prescribe lethal medication for self-administration at home or in a care facility.
• Patients with severe psychiatric conditions and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s are explicitly excluded from accessing assisted dying under the bill.
• Religious leaders from multiple faiths have denounced the legislation as an “anthropological rupture,” while advocacy groups and polls show rising public support and parallel debates in the U.K. and Europe.
• If approved by a majority today, the bill will move to the Senate where France’s lengthy legislative process could delay a final vote, and President Macron has floated a referendum if talks falter.