France appears set to become the first European nation to enshrine a constitutional value related to abortion. The Senate approved on Wednesday the inclusion in the Constitution of an article that enshrines the guaranteed freedom of women to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy. After this vote in the upper chamber, with 267 in favor and 50 against, the first constitutional reform of President Emmanuel Macron’s tenure advanced past its most challenging hurdle. All signs point to final parliamentary validation on the coming March 4th.
Usually playing a secondary role, the Senate captured the media spotlight this week in the neighboring country. The Republicans, aligned with the PP, hold a majority in that chamber, which is elected via indirect suffrage. Its president, Gerard Larcher, had opposed this reform, arguing that the Constitution should not function as a catalogue of social and societal rights. Yet facing public pressure, with recent surveys showing broad support, many conservative and centrist senators changed their minds in recent weeks. Their votes proved decisive for moving the measure forward, even though the National Assembly had already approved it unanimously on January 30.
“The world’s first country”
To rewrite the Constitution, both houses must approve identical language. Then the reform would need either a popular referendum or two-thirds backing from both deputies and senators. In the case of abortion, the plan is to hold a joint session of Parliament in Versailles early next week. Macron hopes to sign the measure in tandem with International Women’s Day.
“People must make France the first nation in the world to guarantee to women the freedom to control their own bodies,” stated Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti in the Palace of the Bourbon. He urged senators to adopt the same wording already approved by the lower house, noting that the bill is about 85 percent aligned with the Senate’s version from February of the previous year. Institutions in France have been wrestling with this constitutional modification since late 2022, but the two chambers had not yet managed to agree on a single text.
In fact, the process is a complex one, propelled in part by the June 2022 Supreme Court verdict in the United States, which led to the restriction of abortion access in several states. The aim of the French text is to prevent any prohibition or major limitation on access to abortion. During a heated debate in the Senate, ecologist Senator Mélanie Vogel argued for a strong protection of access, while antiabortion voices intensified, led by ultranationalist Senator Stéphane Ravier.
Resurgence of antiabortion rhetoric
Unlike the initial proposal approved by the National Assembly in November 2022, the current reform would not grant a constitutional right to abortion itself but a guaranteed freedom to choose. This terminological shift reduces the immediate legal weight, though the symbolic significance remains clear. Activists recently cited that the right to an abortion would have required more stringent guarantees from the state, whereas freedom is a more flexible concept. A spokesperson for the feminist collective Osez le Féminisme! commented that the change preserves a strong symbolic meaning even as it softens the ultimate legal impact.
France legalized voluntary termination of pregnancy in 1975. Today, party lines across the spectrum, including far-right factions led by Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, broadly support the right. Yet the constitutional reform has revived antiabortion discourse. A recent report by CNews, widely described as France’s conservative-leaning channel, portrayed abortion as a leading cause of mortality, fueling controversy in the public sphere.
Nathalie Delattre, a Radical party member, lamented that global trends seem to retreat from women’s rights, urging France to stand as a beacon of progress. A representative from the center-left urged the nation to position itself as a country of light and responsibility on the issue.