On Sunday, October 29, President Emmanuel Macron took a step toward enshrining the right to abortion in the French constitution, announcing that a bill to protect this right would be presented at the end of 2023. "By 2024, women's freedom to have recourse to abortion will be irreversible," Macron said.

However, some conservative and far-right leaders have criticized this constitutional reform, accusing the president of "importing an American debate" following the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022. The president of the Rassemblement National (far-right), Marine Le Pen, called the text "totally useless." "No political movement, whether inside or outside of the Assemblée Nationale, is calling for abortion to be called into question," said the former presidential candidate on October 29.

Yet several countries that recognize abortion as a legal right have recently clamped down on access to the procedure without actually banning it. This was the case in Poland, where since 2021, several pregnant women have died because they failed to get medical pregnancy terminations in time.

In France, no political group is currently calling for a tightening of the rules governing abortion. However, not all French women have equal access to the procedure. In this two-minute explainer video, Le Monde looks at the issues surrounding abortion rights in France and why Macron wants to enshrine the right to abortion in the constitution now.