In a break from the last three weeks of Middle East discourse, which has dominated French political debate, on Sunday, 29 October, President Macron took a step toward enshrining the right to abortion in the Constitution. "The draft constitutional law will be sent to the Council of State this week and presented to the Council of Ministers by the end of the year," the president posted on X (formerly Twitter). The proposal involves adding to Article 34 of the Constitution that "the law determines the conditions under which a woman's guaranteed freedom to have recourse to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy is exercised."
On March 8, during the national tribute to French lawyer and women's rights advocate Gisèle Halimi, the president had pledged to "amend our Constitution to enshrine women's freedom to have recourse to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, solemnly guaranteeing that nothing can hinder or undo what will thus be irreversible."
"By 2024, women's freedom to have recourse to abortion will be irreversible," Macron said on Sunday, October 29. According to a statement by his office at the Elysée Palace, the president – before a trip to Central Asia – had hoped the subject would recreate some unity in the political world following "a period of intense crisis over the last few days," marked by the murder of the schoolteacher Dominique Bernard in Arras, northern France, on October 13 and the war in the Middle East. "He wants to get some fresh air, loosen the stranglehold," said François Patriat, leader of the Macron-aligned senators.
With this revision of the Constitution, which he hopes to see completed in the first quarter of 2024, Macron is venturing on ground already well-trodden by Parliament. In November 2022, French MPs overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution to constitutionalize the right to abortion, in response to the US Supreme Court's June 2022 decision to revoke it on a federal level.
In February, the Sénat also approved the principle of constitutionalizing abortion, but with wording enshrining a woman's "freedom" rather than her "right" to have an abortion. Despite this last-minute modification by Senator Philippe Bas – who was once an aide to former health minister and abortion rights champion Simone Veil – the bill was only adopted by a narrow majority (166 votes in favor, 152 against), with a large proportion of Les Républicains (LR, right-wing) senators still opposed to it. "The Sénat vote demonstrated that a path exists toward the adoption of a constitutional revision," the Elysée stated because the "two chambers converged" on the issue.
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