VERSAILLES, Yvelines (Reuters) – French senators and deputies meeting in Congress at the Palace of Versailles on Monday endorsed the inclusion in the Constitution of voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG), a first in the world.
The government text had to be voted on by at least 3/5ths of the members of Congress to be adopted.
In total, 780 parliamentarians voted for, 72 voted against; 902 parliamentarians out of 925 took part in the vote, 852 votes were cast.
“French pride, universal message”, reacted President Emmanuel Macron on the X platform. “Let us celebrate together the entry of a new freedom guaranteed in the Constitution by the first sealing ceremony in our history open to the public.”
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This ceremony will take place symbolically on Friday March 8, International Women’s Rights Day, at the Ministry of Justice, said the Head of State.
The Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, had welcomed before the vote “a second victory” for Simone Veil and French women, defending “a rampart against the makers of misfortune”.
This symbolic step, hailed as “a victory” by women’s rights organizations, was broadcast live on a giant screen on the square of freedoms and human rights in Paris.
The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, the first woman to preside over a Congress in the hemicycle inaugurated in 1876, opened the debates by paying tribute to Simone Veil, who worked for the decriminalization of abortion in France.
She praised the past and current struggles of “those who fight every day so that we climb meter by meter the steep wall leading to equality between women and men”.
Succeeding him at the podium, Gabriel Attal also summoned the memory of Simone Veil, in the presence of his son, and the lawyer Gisèle Halimi, whose family was represented.
After a famous pleading in 1972 before the juvenile court of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), Gisèle Halimi won a first legal victory in the fight for the legalization of abortion by defending the young Marie-Claire, 16 years old, tried for having aborted following rape.
“Women’s bodies are the empire of their freedom,” said Gabriel Attal, in an intervention recounting the years of women’s struggles to obtain the right to abortion.
“We have a moral debt to all these women who suffered in their flesh as in their spirit,” underlined the head of government, referring to suffering which “haunts us”.
“RAMPART”
“Today, we can change the course of History,” he declared, drawing applause from Simone Veil, Gisèle Halimi and the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF).
“We are giving a second victory to Simone Veil and to all French women,” he said, affirming his determination to “act for the cause of equality”.
The genesis of this bill with strong symbolic resonance dates back to June 2022. A historic turning point then alerted supporters of abortion. The Supreme Court of the United States overturns the “Roe vs. Wade” ruling which since 1973 had guaranteed American women the right to abortion throughout the country.
The practice is not prohibited but now depends on the will of each State. At the time president of the Renaissance group in the Assembly, the Minister of Equality between women and men, Aurore Bergé, proposed a text. She will be followed by the deputy of La France insoumise (LFI) Mathilde Panot.
A bill was finally adopted by the National Assembly on January 30 by 493 votes to 20, then by the Senate on February 28. The upper house, initially refractory, finally allowed constitutionalization by 267 votes to 50. President Emmanuel Macron then summoned Congress to ratify this societal step.
“The law determines the conditions under which the freedom guaranteed to a woman to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy is exercised”, it will thus be enshrined in article 34 of the Basic Law.
Women’s rights organizations believe that constitutionalization will consolidate an effective right in France since 1975 and the passing of the law passed by the Minister of Health at the time, Simone Veil, to legalize abortion. The Gaillot law of March 2022 extended the legal period for abortion from 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy.
The chosen formulation – it is a question of the “freedom” of women to resort to abortion, not of the “right” – preserves the conscience clause introduced by the Veil law which allows medical personnel to refuse the practice of an interruption voluntary pregnancy, provided that they refer the patient without delay to another health professional.
“The freedom to abort remains in danger,” pleaded Gabriel Attal, citing the Americans, Hungarians and even Polish women subjected to “oppression” in this area.
“This text is a shield against the makers of misfortune.”
(Written by Sophie Louet, with contributions from Clotaire Achi, Stéphanie Lecocq and Tangi Salaün, edited by Bertrand Boucey)
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