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France's National Assembly Set for Final Euthanasia Vote as Bishop Warns Catholic Lawmakers on Communion
France's National Assembly was set to cast a final, decisive vote Wednesday on a bill that would legalize both euthanasia and assisted suicide nationwide, using a constitutional maneuver to bypass a Senate that has rejected the measure three times. Under Article 45 of the French Constitution, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu was expected to give the Assembly the last word after the two chambers remained deadlocked, most recently when the Senate voted the bill down 169 to 164 on July 7.
The bill, titled a "right to aid in dying," would let adult French residents with a serious, incurable illness in an advanced or terminal stage request lethal medication, administered either by their own hand or, if they are physically unable, by a doctor or nurse. The Assembly had already approved the measure in three separate readings, most recently by 295 votes to 232 on June 30.
Ahead of the vote, Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne, Lescar and Oloron delivered a blunt warning to Catholic members of the Assembly. "A Catholic engaged in public life cannot ignore" the Church's constant teaching against euthanasia, he told France Catholique, adding that lawmakers who vote for the bill while understanding the conflict "will no longer be able to receive Communion." Aillet grounded his warning in the Vatican's 2020 declaration Samaritanus Bonus, which affirms that euthanasia remains gravely wrong regardless of circumstance, and drew a sharp line between authentic compassion and what St. John Paul II called a "false mercy."
The French bishops' conference has opposed the bill since its first reading in 2025, issuing formal statements at each stage, and released a video appeal on the eve of the June 30 vote in which Archbishop Vincent Jordy said the testimony of caregivers and end-of-life specialists had been "painfully ignored" throughout the debate. Caregiver federations, including the Societe francaise d'accompagnement et de soins palliatifs, have separately warned that the bill moves toward assisted death before palliative care is made a real, accessible alternative for the dying. More than 58,000 people had joined a prayer chain organized through the Catholic social network Hozana asking lawmakers to reject the bill.
Final Thoughts
Whatever the outcome in Paris, the truth does not change with a vote count. Every human life, at every stage of suffering, carries a dignity that no parliament can legislate away. Priests for Life stands with the bishops of France, and with every caregiver and family choosing to walk with the dying rather than end them, and asks all who read this to pray for the courage of France's lawmakers today.
