the Citizens’ Convention defines its “priority themes” for 2023

The « phase d’appropriation » of the subject is over, that of the “deliberations” can start. To prepare for this new stage, the 185 participants in the Citizens’ Convention on the end of life proceeded, on Sunday, December 18, at the end of the second session, to their first solemn vote in plenary. Objective: to determine ten priority themes. Those which will be debated during the four sessions scheduled for January and February 2023 at the Palais d’Iéna, in Paris, headquarters of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese) responsible for hosting this singular exercise in participatory democracy.

It is 11:50 a.m. when Soline, the “facilitator” appointed by the governance committee, takes to the forefront of the hemicycle to announce the questions selected. First of all : “the human and financial resources to be mobilized for full implementation of the support framework provided for in the light of the demographic and economic context and its evolution”. In other words, how to ensure that the Claeys-Leonetti law of 2016 setting the conditions for the end of life is really applied.

The theme placed in second position insists on the legal obligation to have personnel and establishments throughout the territory. A kind of “enforceable right to end-of-life care that would be imposed on public authorities”, said earlier Ludivine, rapporteur of the proposal. Finally, in the third row of priorities: “the initial and continuing training of medical, paramedical and accompanying personnel” that all the caregivers, interviewed the day before, still considered very insufficient.

An almost unanimous vote

Next come questions relating to the general public’s lack of information, of which many Convention members have personally taken the measure when discovering the complexity of the subject, to inequalities in access to palliative care, a subject of public notoriety, without forgetting “the interests at stake in the economy of life”, who takes 8th place.

The themes of“active assistance in dying” – euthanasia and/or assisted suicide – and its counterparts, “acceptable/necessary exceptions to the Claeys-Leonetti law”,“the limits of palliative care” et “the treatment of active assistance in dying for extreme forms of psychic suffering” respectively occupy the 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th positions. A classification which shows that the conventional ones do not make the evolution of the law the priority of the priorities.

“Does this vote capture the spirit of the assembly? », launches Soline from the platform. A tide of green cards rises in the assembly, punctuated by rare orange cards brandished by those who disagree. An almost unanimous vote which punctuates two weekends, since December 9, of discovery of the legislative, institutional and philosophical framework through a series of hearings of experts and actors in the field.

A « phase d’appropriation » which leaves a bitter taste to some. “We listened to religious and caregivers rather against, but there are also supporters of the right to die that we would have liked to hear”, regrets a citizen from the spans, to the applause of part of the assembly. It takes more to destabilize Claire Thoury, the chair of the governance committee: “Today’s vote does not freeze things. If new themes arise, we can integrate them. And we will have additional hearings during the following sessions. We will be careful that the debate remains serene and peaceful, but the controversy phase can begin. »