smooth it out Emmanuel Macron, who received the members of the Citizens’ Convention on the end of life this Monday morning at the Élysée, did not affirm a clear position and referred any decision to Parliament “at the end of the summer of 2023”.
“I have a personal opinion that can evolve, it evolves, perhaps it will evolve,” judged the Head of State before the 184 citizens drawn.
“The saving doubt” by Emmanuel Macron
The members of this body who have worked on the issue over the last four months have been very mostly spoke in favor of an opening of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Francelike the French. According to an Ifop survey, 78% of respondents want the legislation on the end of life to change.
But there is no doubt that the president is moving too fast on an issue that he sees as a source of tension in the highly inflammable context of pension reform. More generally, Emmanuel Macron has been careful in recent years never to publicize his position on the end of life.
At the beginning of March, the president thus evoked his “saving doubt” and his need to “mature” on this “complex” issue that he wants to let “mature” in front of religious dignitaries.
Death, “not a technical act”
With an obsession: not to “humiliate” Catholics, as he explained taking into account François Hollande’s counter-model during marriage for all in 2013. But the president also seems to hesitate on a more personal level.
“On the subject of the end of life, I spoke to the Pope about the initiative, telling him that I did not like the word ‘euthanasia’. Death is a moment in life, it is not a technical act,” Emmanuel Macron explained to some journalists last October, after an interview in the Vatican.
“François knows that I will not do anything,” the Elysée tenant still assured. In 2018, during a dinner to discuss the future bioethics law, Emmanuel Macron even considered the question of the end of life “off topic”.
The Claeys-Leonetti law that allows the cessation of treatment under the “refusal of unreasonable obstinacy” and that opens the possibility of deep sedation to die without suffering, is considered sufficient at the beginning of its first five years.
“We will do it”
But true to his ‘at the same time’, Emmanuel Macron always aims to cover his tracks. Last fall, when the insignia of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor was awarded to Line Renaud, close to the presidential couple and fervent supporter of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity, which wants to authorize euthanasia, the forty – Years would have slipped the former leader of the magazine “we will do it”.
During the 2022 presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron even comes out of the woods publicly. During a trip to Charente-Maritime, the candidate for president declared himself “favourable” in a personal capacity, that France “evolves” towards “the Belgian model”, in other words, towards a legalization of euthanasia for people suffering from diseases considered incurable.
Before a normal roller coaster. The Elysee assures the Catholic newspaper The cross that he expressed himself in a private capacity and refuses to apply his convictions to “an entire country” on issues of bioethics.
Ferrand promised the “right to die with dignity”
For his part, Richard Ferrand, then president of the National Assembly and very close to the presidency, stated a few days before the first round of the 2022 presidential elections that “the right to die with dignity” will be one of the great reforms. Social consequences in case of re-election of Emmanuel Macron.
But by referring the end-of-life issue to the government and Parliament, the Head of State saves himself a way out. Whatever the outcome of the debates, the president will thus be able to refer the matter to the deputies and senators and avoid taking a very clear position.
The president has also assured that he now wants to extend the use of Citizen Conventions to other social issues, a way of not coming to the fore on issues considered too divisive.
Source: BFM TV
