Macron takes steps to legalize assisted suicide

France plans to legalize assisted suicide for adults facing certain death because of illness.

President Emmanuel Macron made the announcement to the French newspapers La Croix and Liberation, saying he will put forward the legislation needed to protect people who help others die, as long as that assistance complies with strict rules.

Macron said the law will offer people with painful terminal illnesses "a possible path, in a determined situation, with precise criteria, where the medical decision is playing its role" and that the change was needed "because there are situations you cannot humanely accept".

His announcement followed the release of a government report last year that was the culmination of a long consultation process and included studies of French citizens' views. The report concluded that most people in the nation now support end-of-life options.

Macron said the new law will only apply to people with incurable illnesses who doctors believe will die in the "short- or middle-term" and who are in "intractable" physical or psychological pain.

They will also need to be able to make their own informed decision on whether to end their life, so people with severe psychiatric conditions and neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia will be excluded.

Some religious leaders in the traditionally Catholic country have criticized the proposed law, as have some healthcare workers who say they may now be asked to do things they disagree with.

Macron "has with great violence announced a system far removed from patients' needs and health workers' daily reality, which could have grave consequences on the care relationship", the associations for palliative care, cancer support and specialist nurses said in a statement.

Accusing the government of aiming to save money with the plan, they said that greater resources for palliative care, rather than assisted dying, would fulfill patients' demands to "die with dignity".

The proposed legislation will be debated and reviewed in Parliament during a period likely to last several months that will start with the bill being presented in April, and ramp up with the bill's first reading in the National Assembly on May 27. The law is unlikely to come into force before next year.

As all forms of assisted dying are currently illegal in France, many citizens with painful terminal illnesses have been traveling to private clinics in Switzerland to end their lives. Assisted suicide is also legal in Portugal.

Agencies contributed to this story.