The end of life billwhich is a commitment of its president of France Emmanuel Macron, presented today to the cabinet, opening the prospect of assisted suicide within a strict framework. Some consider the text of the bill lukewarm. Others, dangerous.

The text concerning “patient care and end of life» recommends one major social reform of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year termwho had pledged to change the existing legislation on the matter.

However, the French government is risking a major challenge moral and religious dichotomies on the validity of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The president of France, who presented the main axes of the bill in March, refuses to use these terms, preferring the term “aid in death”.

However, the special offer in some of his patients medium for suicide and – in case they are unable to carry out the fatal act – it is foreseen that someone else will do it in their place.

The conditions they will be very strict, according to the text obtained by AFP before it was submitted to the Council of State, the highest administrative court that also acts as a legal adviser to the government and parliament.

According to the text in this form, which has since probably changed, assistance in dying will concern them seriously illborn in France or those who have long resided in the country, who will be able to express clearly the will them and suffer from unbearable physical and mental pain, which are impossible to deal with.

THE condition of the patient should be final in the short or medium term, a formulation that leaves a lot of room for evaluation to the healers.

When a patient asks for assisted suicide, a doctor will have to make a decision after a procedure that will leave him 15 days. It will be an individual decision of the doctor, which he will take after consulting other healers.

Palliative care

For President Macron, these conditions allow for a “balance” to be achieved by creating a “French model” for the end of life. But this very condition does not satisfy either the opponents or the supporters of the legalization of assisted suicide or euthanasia.

The former categorically reject what they consider to be a serious deviation.

The tip of the spear against the bill is the Church of France. It follows a large number of therapists, mainly in the field of palliative care, according to which there should first be care for the development of this field, to ensure that patients do not ask to die because they do not find the care they need in the last days of their lives.

However, the issue of palliative care is included in the bill and at the same time a “decade strategy” for palliative care will be presented to the cabinet, gradually increasing public spending to reach €2.7 billion annually in 2034 – up from 1, 6 billion today.

Proponents of assisted dying are also unhappy, but for less serious reasons. They disagree with the overly restrictive conditions, but are relieved the bill itself exists.

MPs will start examining the text at the end of May. It will be the start of a long parliamentary process that is likely to last up to two years until a law is adopted.