End of life: government spokesperson suggests opposition to "assisted dying"

Government spokesperson Sophie Primas, from the Republicans (LR), made clear on Monday, May 12, her personal opposition to the bill on "assisted dying," which begins its examination in the Assembly on Monday, illustrating the divisions within the executive on the subject.

Although Sophie Primas declared on RTL that she "did not know what she would vote for" if she were a senator, she did in fact express her opposition by unexpectedly referring to a column by a collective of "left-wing citizens and caregivers" ("Jusqu'au Bout Solidaires") published on the website of the communist newspaper L'Humanité .

"I would like to urge you to visit the L'Humanité website to see an absolutely exceptional article, a collective of doctors and healthcare workers who are calling for the rejection of this text on the end of life," she said.

In this article , this collective judges that the law is "antisocial" because "the will to die does not fall from the sky, nor does it arise purely from the individual" but results "from an internalized discourse, in a society which devalues ​​certain lives (...) less productive, less independent".

Sophie Primas suggested that the government's amendments - defended by Minister Catherine Vautrin, who is leading the bill - to ensure that "access to assisted dying is strictly regulated" did not go far enough.

"If we look, for example, at legislation in Canada, which was very restrictive at the beginning, it now tends to broaden its scope to include vulnerable groups," she warned.

For two weeks, MPs will debate two bills, one on palliative care and the other on assisted dying.

Unusually, the government is very divided on the second text , with the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau (LR), a determined opponent and the Prime Minister himself, François Bayrou, quite reserved.