The French Senate has again blocked a bill to introduce a right to assisted dying. On 12 May 2026, senators rejected the text at second reading and sent it back to the National Assembly for a third reading. The Senate had already voted it down at first reading on 28 January. The National Assembly approved it in May 2025 and again in February 2026.
Under certain conditions, the bill would have allowed seriously and incurably ill patients to receive a lethal substance, which they could take themselves or have administered by a doctor or nurse.
One of the most contentious elements, alongside the proposed legal right to assisted dying, was an obstruction offence. Anyone preventing patients from accessing assisted dying or information about it could have faced up to two years in prison and a €30,000 fine.
The Senate had already significantly altered the bill during committee deliberations. Among other changes, it removed the obstruction offence and broadened the conscience clause. Even that softened version, however, failed to secure a majority in the plenary debate.
A Moral Imperative
Christian organizations in France welcomed the Senate’s rejection, while warning that the debate should not be regarded as over. After the first vote in January, the Catholic bishops’ conference said in a statement: “Causing death will never be a human, fraternal and dignified response to suffering.”
At the same time, it welcomed the Senate’s adoption of a law to expand palliative care. Relieving pain until the end of life, the bishops said, was a “moral imperative”.
After the National Assembly approved the bill in February, the bishops’ conference reaffirmed its opposition. It spoke of a “deep anthropological rupture”, arguing that the role of medicine would be changed. Doctors would no longer be there solely to heal, care for patients and relieve pain, but, in certain circumstances, to bring about death.
The bishops warned of social and family pressure on seriously ill and dependent people, as well as legal uncertainty. In their view, the planned obstruction offence posed a risk to freedom of conscience and created an obstacle to suicide prevention.
Honoring Life
The Evangelical Alliance in France, the National Council of Evangelicals in France (CNEF), also opposed the bill. According to Christian Daily International, evangelical representatives urged lawmakers to respect the Senate’s decision.
The CNEF had previously called on parliamentarians to invest more heavily in palliative care instead of legalizing assisted killing. In its appeal, it said: “We ask every lawmaker to act for a humane society that cares for people, stands by them, protects them and honors life.” Every person, it added, bears the image of God and has immeasurable dignity, regardless of limitations or weaknesses.
The CNEF was particularly concerned about how pastoral counseling could be treated under the bill. In the alliance’s view, Protestant pastors or Christian doctors who raised ethical objections to assisted dying could be accused of exerting moral pressure on patients.
The CNEF also criticized the fact that although a conscience clause had been planned for individual doctors, no corresponding protection had been provided for Christian institutions. Care homes, clinics and hospitals with a religious identity, it argued, must not be forced to allow assisted dying or assisted suicide on their premises.
A Warning on Human Dignity
Christian churches in France had already set out their objections in more fundamental terms before the vote. The Council of Christian Churches in France (CECEF), which brings together Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox representatives, said the dignity of a human society lies in standing by people until death, not in making death easier.
The council argued that freedom must not be confused with individualism, since human beings depend on relationships and solidarity. “No one is the sole owner of his life; his decisions also have effects on others”, it said.
The Christian pro-life organization Alliance VITA welcomed the Senate’s renewed rejection, arguing that “humanity, support and pain relief must remain the foundations of our model of solidarity”. The government, it said, should not devote its energy to what the group called an “unjust, useless and potentially dangerous project”, but to an ambitious and effective expansion of palliative care.
Strengthening Palliative Care
The Catholic news portal Zenit described the Senate vote as a refusal to cross a “red ethical line”. A majority of senators, it said, had not wanted a society that caused the death of the weakest, but one that respected human dignity, stood by people, cared for them and relieved their suffering until the end.
Further consideration of the bill now returns to the National Assembly. If mediation between the two chambers fails, the National Assembly may ultimately have the final word.
Christian voices in France therefore see the Senate’s decision chiefly as an interim victory. They are calling for the protection of freedom of conscience, the dignity of vulnerable people and nationwide access to palliative care to remain at the center of the debate.