Since it was founded in 1980, the Association for the Right to Die in Dignity (ADMD) has campaigned for the legalisation of assisted dying and euthanasia for terminally ill adults in France.
It also plays an important role in providing patients with information and mediating between them and medical professionals.
Anne Raynaud, its youth officer, said the organisation reflects the views of a majority of French people, with opinion polls showing most support legalising assisted dying or euthanasia.
Anne Raynaud of the Association for the Right to Die in Dignity (ADMD)Anne Raynaud
“Everything shows that the French are ready,” she said.
She notes that a citizens’ convention in 2023, which brought together 165 French people from all walks of life to discuss the issue, found 75% supported legalising some form of assisted dying as well as improving palliative care.
The most fervent opponents are religious representatives and conservatives, but these “are in a minority among the French people”, Ms Raynaud said.
Legal progress
An ‘aid for dying’ bill was introduced in France in 2024, but an examination by MPs was disrupted when President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections in June of that year.
The issue is back on the agenda in 2025. Prime Minister François Bayrou split the bill into two – one that focused on improving palliative care and one that would legalise ‘aid in dying’.
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The bill avoids using the terms ‘assisted suicide’ (when a patient ends their own life by taking a lethal drink or medication) or ‘euthanasia’ (when someone else administers a lethal injection for the sick person), but both are covered, with euthanasia only available if the patient could not swallow the product themselves.
Those eligible would have to be over 18, have French citizenship or residency and be able to make the decision themselves. They would require an illness at a "terminal or advanced phase”.
The ADMD would like a bill based on the Belgian system. But unlike the Belgian law, it would not allow assisted dying for people suffering from mental illnesses.
A request for assisted dying or euthanasia would have to be approved by two doctors and a medical auxiliaire, such as a nurse.
France is behind other countries
France has been slow to legislate on assisted dying compared to many other European countries, according to Ms Raynaud.
The Netherlands was the first in the world to legalise euthanasia, in 2001, followed by Belgium in 2002.
They have since been followed by countries including Switzerland, Italy and Spain.
“We are very late compared to other countries. From the perspective of our opponents, they argue that France is a traditional Catholic country.
"However, a Peruvian court granted a woman suffering incurable disease the right to die by euthanasia in 2021 – the first person in that country to obtain the right to die with medical assistance – and it is one of the biggest Catholic countries in the world.”
She said to some extent France was “hiding behind religion” on the issue.
‘Opposition is to be expected’
Some doctors are opposed to the law, and have said they would not carry out euthanasia if it was legalised. This opposition is to be expected, said Ms Raynaud.
“It is completely normal; in every big change in society you have people who doubt and who do not want to go through the process.
“Take abortion: we had the same issue in the 1970s. We had doctors saying: ‘I will not do any abortions in France because it is against my views’. I think it is part of the process of changing a society.”
She stressed that doctors who do not wish to carry out euthanasia would not have to – the association wants a clause in the law to give them the right to refuse.
“However, you cannot refuse for the doctors who are okay to do it,” she said.
“Experience from other countries has shown there are some doctors, for example in Belgium, who refused to carry out euthanasia when it was legalised in 2002 who now do so because they have changed their mind on the process. They saw it was secure.”
Deep sedation is not enough
Continuous deep sedation was legalised in France in 2016. It allows terminally ill patients to be placed in a deep coma when they are very close to the end of life.
But the law “is not good enough,” according to Ms Raynaud. She says that because it is only designed to be available hours before death, many people, such as those with neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, are not included.
“You have many people who are in jail in their own body and they have to wait until the very end of their life to have very deep sedation.
“It is cruel because no doctor can say precisely when people will die.”
The patient themselves should be given more say in their own end of life, she said.
“Nobody is in a better place than them to decide, to say: ‘Now I am suffering too much and I think this is the right moment to switch off the light.’”
The ADMD hopes a law will be approved by the end of 2025.
“We have never been so close to a law and at the same time we see that there is still some hesitation, but we hope there will be a law this year,” said Ms Raynaud.
To become legal, the bill would have to be debated by MPs and senators before going back to parliament for a final vote.
