Assisted dying: when the Élysée sets the pace, parliamentary democracy retreats

Context

We had described, in our previous follow-ups, the back-and-forth of a parliamentary shuttle where the Senate opposed by three times its refusal to the principle of active assistance in dying. What Le Salon Beige reveals this July 11, 2026 changes the nature of the debate: it is no longer the Parliament that "wanted to go fast". It is Emmanuel Macron, personally, who imposed the acceleration of the calendar.

The Facts

The President of the Republic asked the Prime Minister to prioritize the new readings, despite the motion of prior rejection voted by the Social Affairs Committee of the Senate on July 1, 2026. Neither the alerts of the Council of State, nor the third refusal of the Senate have changed the trajectory. The executive preferred to bypass the bicameral expression, in a matter which nevertheless falls within the most solemn domain of the law: the legal definition of the death given.

Doctrinal Analysis

The Church judges this drift according to two criteria. On the one hand, on the substance, Evangelium Vitae (John Paul II, 1995) qualifies euthanasia without ambiguity as a "serious violation of the law of God" and as "murder" (n° 65), a teaching recalled by the Catechism (n° 2277). The instruction Samaritanus bonus (DDF, 2020) specifies that no one can cooperate, even in a legislative capacity, with an intrinsically bad act. On the other hand, on the form, the social doctrine of the Church recalls that political authority is legitimate only insofar as it serves the common good and respects the proper ends of the political community, as taught by Gaudium et spes (Vatican II, 1965) at n° 74. Short-circuiting the senatorial representation to impose a law of bioethical transgression combines the two faults.

Stakes for the Church and the Faithful

The presidential responsibility is now explicitly engaged. It has a moral dimension that canonists and moralists will one day have to examine. It also has a political dimension: Catholic elected officials, particularly those in the Senate, are being asked to oppose an institutional "non possumus", by refusing to be the parliamentary cover for a text that the executive is tearing from them. The collective conscience clause, demanded by the Little Sisters of the Poor, becomes the only remaining dam.

Critical Reading and Blind Spots

Two points remain to be monitored. Firstly, the referendum route, ruled out by the Élysée, would have offered legitimacy that the torn law will not possess; the Constitutional Council could draw the consequences. Secondly, the ECHR, which has never recognized a "right to die" (Pretty v. United Kingdom, 2002; Haas v. Switzerland, 2011), could eventually be seized by caregivers or private denominational establishments deprived of a conscience clause.

To Meditate and Act

Write to senators to call for a firm refusal during the final reading vote. Legally support Catholic establishments threatened in their mission. Reread Evangelium Vitae n° 73: no Catholic can "lend his formal collaboration" to an euthanasia law, even under institutional pressure.