A hundred personalities signed the manifesto of the 109 Christine OLSSON / TT NEWS AGENCY / Joel SAGET/ Loic VENANCE/ AFP
While the Citizens’ Convention will deliver its conclusions on April 2, a forum, published by The Obs, calls on Emmanuel Macron to modify the law on active assistance in dying.
A hundred personalities, artists, intellectuals, women or politicians, sign a manifesto to call on President Emmanuel Macron to change the law on the end of life, in a column published in The Obs , this Wednesday.
Among the cultural personalities, the actress Nathalie Baye, the actor Franck Dubosc, the directors Christophe Honoré and Benoît Cohen, the novelists Annie Ernaux and Leïla Slimani, the writer Marc Dugain… signed “The 109 manifesto to change the law».
In addition to the actors of Culture, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Christian Estrosi, the philosophers Raphaël Glucksmann and André Comte-Sponville (who spoke on the subject a few days ago on France Inter ), journalists Mireille Dumas and Laure Adler are among the signatories.
«Every year, French men and women suffering from serious and incurable illnesses are confronted with physical and mental suffering that treatments can no longer relieve. They ask their doctor to help them die and meet with a refusal, condemned to suffer a long and painful end of life, in contradiction with their free and considered will.“, they write in the preamble.
« French law, which prohibits active assistance in dying, is unfair ».
The signatories of the manifesto
Every year, French men and womengo abroad so they can die there“. These women and menare not alone. We are their spouses, their children, their brothers, their sisters, their families, their friends“, they continue, believing that”French law, which prohibits active assistance in dying, is unfair».
«This is why today we call on the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, as well as parliamentarians to take the measure of these tragedies and to reform the law.“, they declare again, inviting to sign their manifesto on the Change.org platform.
To support the point, the actress Nathalie Baye, the director Benoît Cohen (Our darling children…) or Roxane Guichard, the daughter of novelist Anne Bert, euthanized in Belgium in 2017, faced with the pain of a loved one, also gave their testimonies.
Emmanuel Macron set up, last December, a consultative convention of citizens drawn by lot. Its 180 or so members came out overwhelmingly in favor of changing the law in the direction of a “active assistance in dyingin a vote in February, which was only preliminary, however.
Read alsoEnd of life: the Citizens’ Convention votes for an enforceable right to palliative care
Emmanuel Macron must receive the members of the convention quickly after the end of their work scheduled for April 2. Since 2016, the so-called Claeys-Leonetti law has made it possible to go as far as a “continuous deep sedationof certain patients until their death, without making it possible to actively cause their death or to give them the means to do so.