François Bayrou, president of the MoDem and ally of Emmanuel Macron, distanced himself on Sunday from the LREM proposal, supported by Élisabeth Borne, to include the right to abortion in the Constitution, wondering if it was good ” useful at this time”.
After the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to revoke this right, the new leader of the LREM deputies Aurore Bergé announced on Saturday a proposal for a constitutional amendment to include “respect for abortion” in our fundamental law.
The Prime Minister, followed by several members of the government, immediately supported the proposal “with force”.
But “is it useful for the country, at the moment, to organize a referendum on this question”, asked Mr. Bayrou on BFMTV.
A constitutional revision requires the adoption of the same text by the Assembly and the Senate, then it must be approved by referendum. Another option: if the revision was initiated by the executive, or taken over by it, the text must also be validated by the two chambers but can be submitted to Parliament meeting in Congress, which must vote on it by a majority of 3/5ths votes cast.
“Is it good, is it useful to do this, even though, to my knowledge, no political current questions the Veil law” of 1975 which authorized abortion in France, insisted Mr. Bayrou.
“It is all the same surprising that it is what is happening in the United States (…) which is causing a certain number of effervescent reactions in French political life”, continued the centrist leader, who is “not so that we can trace American political life”.
The very conservative Supreme Court on Friday buried a judgment which, for nearly half a century, guaranteed the right of American women to abortion but had never been accepted by the religious right.
In the process, several American states have already announced that they are taking measures to prohibit voluntary terminations of pregnancy on their territory.
The decision was widely condemned in France, from left to right. Emmanuel Macron regretted the “questioning” of women’s freedoms. And the associations for the defense of the right to abortion have worried about a “dangerous signal”.
Aurore Bergé pointed to the new RN deputies “fierce opponents of women’s access to abortion”. Their president Marine Le Pen said on Twitter on Saturday that “the RN has never violated the right of women to have abortions”.
06/26/2022 14:14:45 – Paris (AFP) – © 2022 AFP
