The French Senate proposes a restrictive version of assisted dying in committee

The French Senate has proposed in committee a more restrictive version of assisted dying approved by the National Assembly in May 2025, which will allow access to this right only to terminal patients whose life is at risk “in the short term.”

The legislation – which was rejected by the Senate at the end of January of this year – was debated again this Wednesday in the Social Affairs Committee of the Upper House before being voted on again in mid-May, according to French media.

The senators have reviewed the criteria for accessing assisted dying, including being over 18 years old, being French or resident in France, suffering from a “serious and incurable condition” that “endangers life” in an advanced or terminal phase, as well as “being able to express one’s own will in a free and informed manner.”

In the new proposal raised by two senators from the conservative Los Republicanos, the commission has proposed changing the concept of prognosis in an advanced or terminal phase to a short-term potentially fatal prognosis, which for practical purposes restricts access to this right to a few days before death.

In parallel, they have also debated another bill on palliative care that has been approved by the senators without modifications in the committee and that will likely have a ‘green light’ from the Senate in mid-May.

The assisted death project – which allows patients to administer a lethal substance to themselves to die with dignity – was presented by the Government of President Emmanuel Macron in April 2024 after years of social debate and as an alternative to the 2016 Claeys-Léonetti law on the end of life, which authorizes deep sedation for patients with a terminal prognosis.