A much awaited debate then quickly concealed? This is the path that seems to be taking the bill “giving and guaranteeing the right to a free and chosen end of life”, examined Thursday, April 8 in the National Assembly, within the framework of the parliamentary niche of the opposition group of center left, Liberties and Territories. The reason is simple. Almost 3,000 amendments were tabled on this text inspired by the Belgian law on euthanasia. The ambition of this bill is to authorize “Active medical assistance to die” for “Any capable and adult person, in the advanced or terminal phase of a serious and incurable disease, whatever the cause, causing physical or psychological suffering which cannot be alleviated or which he considers unbearable”.
At the origin of this parliamentary maneuver, five deputies from the Les Républicains (LR) group alone tabled more than 2,300 amendments. Among them, the deputy of Bas-Rhin, Patrick Hetzel. The latter maintains that such a debate on such a sensitive subject cannot take place in a few hours, within the framework of a day reserved for the opposition. “It’s a signal we’re sending. I consider that we must leave time for this real social debate ”, he believes, declaring himself “Hostile in substance” to the text of Olivier Falorni, Liberties and Territories deputy of Charente-Maritime.
The tactic is unstoppable. She condemns the deputies not to finish the examination of the text to be able to vote it Thursday before midnight. What frighten in the first place its author, Mr. Falorni who had been active for several weeks to rally all the groups around his bill. “The right of amendment is sacred (…). But here you are preventing the deputies from voting while there is a majority of conscience in the National Assembly ”, he said during a press conference at the National Assembly bringing together representatives of the nine parliamentary groups.
“Negation of parliamentary work”
Critics of the text also invoke the fragility of parliamentary expertise on which the five articles of the bill are based. Neither the opinion of the Council of State nor any impact study accompanies this text, in contrast to government bills. A derisory argument for all parliamentarians supporting the bill, one of the five tabled on the end of life since 2017. In this transpartisan momentum, some recall that the latest legislative advance on the end of life, the Claeys law -Leonetti adopted in 2016, was itself born from a proposal by parliamentarians.
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