"A trembling hand" is something many MPs have said they will have when the moment comes to cast their votes on one particular bill. They are, indeed, set to legislate from Monday, May 12, on a bill to legalize assisted dying (whether euthanasia or assisted suicide). Whether they are for or against it, many lawmakers have not resolved all the dilemmas they might have on the subject, which has also created gaping rifts within the government.

The possibility for a doctor to authorize an act that shortens a terminally ill patient's life, at the patient's request, was originally included in a bill on patient support and end-of-life care presented by President Emmanuel Macron in March 2024. The bill was interrupted by the dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale in June, but now the examination has resumed in the Assemblée through discussions on two bills. The first focuses on palliative care, while the second creates a "right to aid in dying." They are, together, set to be the subjects of a joint general discussion, but they will be voted on separately on May 27.

Ahead of the debate at the Assemblée, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau once again railed against the bill, which he called "a text of anthropological break" and one that was "profoundly unbalanced" in the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche on May 11. In Le Parisien on Monday, Labor, Health and Solidarity Minister Catherine Vautrin, on the other hand, defended the bill, which she said creates "an alternative to intolerable suffering that finds no answer." Vautrin announced that she would propose amendments "so that access to aid in dying is very regulated."

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