French lawmakers narrowly approve assisted suicide law

France’s National Assembly returned a 291-241 vote on Wednesday to legalize assisted suicide for adults with terminal illnesses. Assisted suicide had remained under heavy debate among French lawmakers from the legislation’s 2024 proposal by President Emmanuel Macron. He released a Wednesday statement celebrating the bill’s adoption, characterizing assisted dying as an intimate issue that balanced dignity and suffering.

France’s lower chamber approved the measure three separate times over the course of about a year, but the measure never advanced beyond the Senate, with the upper chamber’s conservative majority repeatedly voting it down.

If the Senate never approved it, how can the law be passed? After the latest failed Senate vote, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu invoked a constitutional statute allowing the National Assembly to bypass the Senate. Article 45 of France’s Constitution gave the lower chamber final authority on issues both chambers can’t reach an agreement on.

What happens now? Lecornu planned to appeal the legislation to the Constitutional Council, France’s highest judicial body, according to a Wednesday statement. The prime minister specifically wanted the court’s opinions on the law’s provisions for personal freedom and human dignity. He also wants the court to weigh guardrails supposedly contained in the statute.

Other European countries with laws allowing some forms of assisted suicide include Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain. British lawmakers also debated legalizing assisted suicide since 2024, with the House of Commons passing the End of Life Bill in June 2025. However, the U.K.’s bill expired this May after its House of Lords failed to pass the measure before the legislative session ended.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report on repeated failures of assisted suicide safeguards.