IVG in the Constitution: how will the sealing ceremony take place?


Mayalène Trémolet and Gauthier Delomez, with AFP / Photo credits: Kaname Muto / Yomiuri / The Yomiuri Shimbun via AFP
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11:23 a.m., March 8, 2024

In the wake of the vote of the Versailles Congress, approving on Monday the inclusion of abortion in the French Constitution, Emmanuel Macron invited in a tweet the entire population to celebrate “the entry of a new freedom guaranteed in the Constitution with the first sealing ceremony in our history open to the public. See you this March 8, International Women’s Rights Day.”

According to his entourage, the Head of State wants “a popular ceremony as open as possible”, in order to mark “the culmination of this collective fight”. But what is it exactly?

A tradition whose origins date back to the Merovingian era

It is in reality the extension of a French tradition which dates back to the Merovingians. “Sealing” guarantees the authenticity of a text, and makes it possible to make a modification of the Constitution official. It takes place at the Ministry of Justice, Place Vendôme in Paris. And so, for the first time in history, everyone will be able to attend this ceremony in front of the Chancellery because it will be open to the public. It is scheduled for this Friday from noon. Just before, it is expected thatEmmanuel Macron speaks.

Emmanuel Macron will chair the ceremony

Concretely, the president and the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, are responsible for affixing a wax seal to the text which constitutionalizes abortion. On this seal is written “in the name of the French people”. The press, the machine used to seal the text, dates from the Napoleonic era. For the record, it is a 300 kilo machine which was ordered in 1810 by Cambacérès, a former Minister of Justice. It is also permanently located in the office of the Minister of Justice. After the ceremony, the text will be named “constitutional law of March 8, 2024”.

If the head of state had to be absent during the parliamentary vote on Monday, under the Constitution, he will this time preside over the ceremony this Friday. A ceremony which will have the appearance of a purely emblematic staging, since the affixing of the seal is not a guarantee of the validity of the publication of the text. To do this, we must wait for its appearance in the Official Journal, scheduled for this Saturday.

14 sealings since 1946

There have been fourteen “sealings” of laws since 1946. These were almost always revised Constitutions. But a text of great symbolic significance such as that of October 9, 1981 abolishing the death penalty was also sealed. It is always the Keepers of the Seals who give the final turn of the screw to the sealing press. During the last revision, in 2008, the current head of state – at the time Nicolas Sarkozy – went to the Chancellery for the first time to attend the ceremony.

The wax seal, which was yellow for a long time, has been green since 2002. It is the symbol of the Second Republic which is affixed: on the front side, Marianne surrounded by republican symbols, and on the reverse the motto “in the name of the French people” . Two copies are sealed, one goes to the national archives and the other to the general secretariat of the government.





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