French lawmakers are expected on Monday, March 4, to anchor abortion access in the country’s Constitution, in a world first that has garnered overwhelming public support. A joint session of both houses of Parliament to be convened in Versailles at 3:30 pm should find the three-fifths majority needed for the change after it overcame initial resistance in the right-leaning Sénat. If Parliament approves the move, France will become the only country in the world to clearly protect the right to terminate a pregnancy in its basic law.
President Emmanuel Macron pledged last year to enshrine abortion – legal in France since 1975 – in the Constitution after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, allowing states to ban or curtail it. France’s Assemblée Nationale in January overwhelmingly approved making abortion a « guaranteed freedom » in the Constitution, followed by the Sénat on Wednesday. The bill is now expected to clear the final hurdle of a combined vote of both chambers when they gather at the former royal residence of the Palace of Versailles.
Article 89 of the Constitution, which lays down the procedures for revising the Constitution, stipulates that any proposed revision must be « voted by both assemblies in identical terms » before being « approved by referendum. » However, the draft may be adopted without a referendum if « the President of the Republic decides to submit it to Parliament convened in a joint session of both houses of Parliament. »
The text was widely adopted by the Assemblée Nationale (492 votes in favor, 30 against) and also by the Sénat (267 votes in favor, 50 against). If MP vote identically on Monday, the three-fifths majority required will be comfortably exceeded.
During the vote in the Assemblée Nationale, opposition to the text came mainly from the right-wing Républicains (LR, 15 votes against), the far-right Rassemblement National (RN, 12 votes against), two independant MPs and one MP from the Libertés et territoires group.
In the Sénat, opposition was more important, notably from LR (41 votes against), centrists (7 against) and, to a lesser extent, one Macron-aligned senator and one independent senator.
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