France made history this Monday by becoming the first country in the world to grant constitutional status to women’s right to have an abortion. In a rare moment of unity between the parties, of true political transversality, the two chambers of Parliament approved by an overwhelming majority – 780 votes in favor, 72 against and 50 abstentions – to amend the Constitution to protect the right to voluntarily terminate pregnancy.
The decision, a milestone in the feminist fight and a message to rulers on the international scene who question sexual and reproductive rights, was taken in an extraordinary joint session of the National Assembly and the Senate, at the Palace of Versailles. The 925 deputies and senators – that joint body is called Congress – had been convened by President Emmanuel Macron, who was not present as a sign of respect for the division of powers.
The amendment to the Constitution required a three-fifths majority of parliamentarians, a threshold that I knew was guaranteed because both chambers already reached it comfortably when they voted on the text.
The session took place in a large chamber built in 1875 in the palace built by Louis XIV, the Sun King. The room is sumptuous, with numerous monarchical references. Since the Fifth Republic began in 1958, all constitutional revisions have been adopted by Congress in Versailles. The place is also used for the president’s very infrequent speeches to parliamentarians.
The right to abortion has existed in France since January 17, 1975, the well-known “Simone Veil law”, in honor of who was Minister of Justice, during the presidency of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
The constitutional modification adopted this Monday is very brief, but essential, since it protects the right and makes it very difficult for a Government opposed to abortion to decide in the future to declare it illegal. “The law determines the conditions under which the freedom guaranteed to women to resort to voluntary interruption of pregnancy is exercised,” says the text added to article 34 of the Constitution.
The first to speak was the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet. She recalled that she was the first woman appointed to the position. Braun-Pivet, married and mother of five, wondered if France was going against the grain. “No, she is in the vanguard,” she answered to herself. She is in her place. That is her mission, what is expected of her.”
The tone of the majority of speakers was one of pride for the step that was going to be taken, satisfaction for the pioneering role of France, in whose public opinion the situation in the United States, where the right to abortion is being increasingly attacked, acted like an electroshock. , even from the Supreme Court. France has wanted to be a counterpoint to the restrictive trend usually imposed by authoritarian regimes and some populist governments. To a certain extent, what happened in France is an attempt to globalize law.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who like Macron is especially gifted at oratory on solemn occasions, gave a brilliant and moving speech. He spoke of the right to abortion as “the most intimate of freedoms, freedom par excellence,” and paid tribute to Simone Veil, to whom this Monday France gave “a second victory.” “Yes, France today is faithful to its history,” the head of government stressed.
The deputy of La Francia Insumisa (LFI, radical left) Mathilde Panot insisted on the strength of the French gesture in the international context. Panot said that the right to abort “only bothers reactionaries” and that the vote in Versailles “is also a promise for all women around the world who fight for the right to dispose of their body in Argentina, the United States, Andorra , Italy, Hungary, Poland.”
From the Vatican, the Pontifical Academy for Life expressed its disagreement with the decision made in Versailles. “Precisely in the era of universal human rights there cannot be a right to suppress a human life,” the academy stated in a note that reflected the official and unaltered position of the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
