PARIS (AP) — French lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill to enshrine abortion rights in the French constitution. This makes France the only country that explicitly guarantees a woman's right to a voluntary abortion
The historic move was proposed by President Emmanuel Macron to prevent a rollback of abortion rights like those in the United States in recent years, and the vote during a special joint session of the French parliament prompted a lengthy standing ovation from lawmakers.
The measure passed at the Palace of Versailles by a vote of 780 to 72. Abortion enjoys widespread support across most of the political spectrum in France and has been legal since 1975.
Many MPs in the room smiled broadly and cheered. As a small group of protesters stood outside the joint session, scenes of jubilation erupted across France as women's rights activists hailed the measure promised by Macron, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling in 2022.
The U.S. decision has reverberated across Europe's political landscape, pushing the issue back into public debate in some countries at a time when far-right nationalist parties are gaining influence.
Both chambers of the French Parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate, had separately approved a bill to amend Article 34 of the French Constitution, but the amendment had to be finally approved by a three-fifths majority in the joint special session. The measure states: “The law establishes the conditions under which the freedom of women to seek an abortion is exercised, which is guaranteed.”
The French measure is believed to go a step further than was the case in the former Yugoslavia, whose 1974 constitution stated: “Man is free to decide whether to have children.” Yugoslavia broke away in the early 1990s, and all of its successor states have incorporated similar measures into their constitutions that legally allow women to have an abortion but do not explicitly guarantee it.
Ahead of the vote, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal addressed the more than 900 MPs gathered in Versailles for the joint session, urging them to make France a leader in women's rights and a role model for countries around the world.
“We have a moral debt to women,” Attal said. He paid tribute to Simone Veil, a prominent MP, former health minister and important feminist who championed the bill decriminalizing abortion in France in 1975.
“We have the chance to change history,” Attal said in a moving and decisive speech. “Make Simone Veil proud,” he said to a standing ovation.
None of France's major political parties have questioned abortion rights, including Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National party and the conservative Republicans.
Le Pen, who won a record number of seats in the National Assembly two years ago, said on Monday that her party intended to vote for the bill but added that “there is no need to make this a historic day.” .
A recent poll showed support for abortion rights among the French public at more than 80%, consistent with previous polls. The same poll also found that a clear majority of people support enshrining it in the constitution.
A group of about 200 abortion opponents gathered soberly in Versailles before the vote, some holding a banner that read: “I too was an embryo.”
A large group of women's rights activists gathered at Trocadero Plaza overlooking the Eiffel Tower and let out a collective scream of joy as the voting results were announced. Others celebrated across France even before the joint session of Parliament began.
Sarah Durocher, a leader in the family planning movement, said Monday's vote was “a victory for feminists and a defeat for anti-choice activists.”
“We have increased the protection of this fundamental right,” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert from the Women’s Foundation. “It is a guarantee that women have the right to abortion in France today and in the future.”
The government argued in its introduction to the bill that abortion rights were under threat in the United States, where the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned a 50-year-old ruling that had previously guaranteed it.
“Unfortunately, this event is not an isolated case: in many countries, including Europe, there are currents of opinion that want to hinder at all costs the freedom of women to terminate their pregnancies if they wish,” says the introduction to the French legislation .
“In France, where the majority of people support abortion, this may not be a problem,” said Mathilde Philip-Gay, a law professor and specialist in French and American constitutional law. “But those same people could one day vote for a far-right government, and what happened in the US can also happen elsewhere in Europe, including in France.”
Adding abortion to the French constitution “will make it harder for future anti-abortion activists to challenge these rights, but it will not prevent them from doing so in the long term with the right political strategy,” Philip-Gay added.
“It only takes a moment for everything we thought we had achieved to fade away,” Yael Braun-Pivet, the first female president of the French parliament, said in her address to the joint session.
Amending the constitution is a laborious process and a rare event in France. Since it came into force in 1958, the French constitution has been amended 17 times.
The justice minister said the new amendment would be formally incorporated into the constitution at a public ceremony at Vendome Plaza in Paris on Friday, International Women's Day.
___
Barbara Surk reported from Nice. Michel Euler in Versailles and Oleg Cetinic and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this.