Thank you for your question. For the moment, the National Assembly and the Senate have indeed adopted, in first reading, a constitutional bill, of parliamentary initiative, aiming to include the use of abortion in the Constitution. However, each chamber has adopted a different version of the text, which implies that the legislative procedure continues, without certainty of reaching an agreement. This proposed constitutional law must therefore, for the time being, return to the National Assembly and then to the Senate for a second reading. If deputies and senators reached an agreement, the text would be subject to another obstacle: the organization of a referendum, in accordance with article 89 of the Constitution.
After the vote on the constitutional law proposal in the Senate on February 1, all eyes turned to Emmanuel Macron. Indeed, while the procedure is long and complicated in Parliament, the President of the Republic, who also has the initiative for the revision, can decide to table a constitutional bill which would resume the registration of the use of abortion. in the supreme text of the French legal order. This is what he announced today during the tribute to Gisèle Halimi. In this case, rather than a referendum (a politically delicate procedure, because it would risk creating a debate on a subject on which there is consensus to date), he can submit the text to Congress, i.e. the meeting of the Assembly and the Senate, where he must obtain a three-fifths majority to have the text adopted.
Finally, given Emmanuel Macron’s statements today, he would opt for the version voted in the Senate, which enshrines abortion as a component of women’s freedom, rather than that adopted in the Assembly, which opted for the consecration of a “right to” abortion. Some feminist activists deplore this choice, because they consider the version of the Senate less protective than that of the Assembly. The president also seems to want to include in this draft constitutional law a set of measures on institutions. He has indeed had broader desires for constitutional revision since his election in 2017.
Benoit