Here we offer an unofficial translation of the statement of the Permanent Council of the Bishops’ Conference of France, published on January 15, 2026, in opposition to the proposed legislation. Some paragraph breaks and subtitles have been added for readability:
In the coming days, the Senate will examine a bill establishing a “right to assisted dying.” This debate engages our society in its most intimate and serious matter: how it accompanies its most vulnerable members up to the end of their lives.
We, the bishops of France, wish to reiterate our deep respect for people facing the end of life, serious or incurable illness, suffering, and the fear of depending on others. The Church has long experience in accompanying the sick or disabled, caregivers, nursing staff, hospital chaplains, and nursing home chaplains, and we hear the anguish of those who fear pain, loneliness, or loss of control.
We encounter this anxiety directly when loved ones, members of our families, and the faithful of our dioceses are confronted with it and share it with us. These fears are real. They call for appropriate human, fraternal, medical, and social responses.
For more than 25 years, France has made a unique and valuable choice: to reject both unreasonable medical treatment and induced death, affirming both the right not to suffer and the duty to accompany life to the end.
Successive laws, up to the Claeys-Leonetti law and, today, the new law currently being drafted to ensure equal access for all to palliative care and support, outline a coherent and recognized “French approach” based on the development of a palliative culture, taking into account the patient's wishes, advance directives, and the possibility of deep and continuous sedation, not to cause death but to relieve pain.
Palliative care, the only right answer
Palliative care is the only right answer to the difficult situations at the end of life, and we would like to express here our gratitude to the elected officials who, through their vote, support the current bill for equal access to palliative care and support for all. Many caregivers involved in this field testify that taking into account the physical, psychological, relational, and, where applicable, spiritual dimensions of people who are terminally ill or sick, as proposed by palliative care, almost always leads to the disappearance of requests to die among patients at the end of life. For even behind a request to die, it is often the desire to live that is being expressed.
To enable everyone to access palliative care, the Church, which is already present in hospitals and healthcare practices, is ready to contribute to the development of a palliative culture by intensifying its commitment to the issue.
This raises the question: Why a new law? If “people die badly in France,” as we sometimes hear, it’s not because the administration of a lethal substance to patients is not yet authorized, but because the existing law is insufficiently enforced and access to palliative care remains very uneven across the country. Even today, nearly a quarter of palliative care needs are not being met.
How can death be offered as an option when effective access to care, pain relief (medical advances make it possible to overcome almost all refractory pain), human presence, and support are not guaranteed for everyone?
Blurring ethical boundaries
Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide would profoundly change the nature of our social contract. Behind words that are meant to be reassuring lies a reality that language tends to conceal. Presenting euthanasia and assisted suicide as acts of care seriously blurs ethical boundaries.
Words are being diverted from their true meaning in order to better numb our consciences: this blurring is never neutral. We do not take care of life by giving death. In particular, we reject the instrumentalization of essential concepts such as dignity, freedom, and fraternity.
We strongly reiterate that the dignity of a human person does not vary according to their state of health, autonomy, or social usefulness; it is inherent to their humanity, until the very end. It is inalienable.
Freedom, for its part, cannot be thought of in abstract terms, as if suffering, fear, loneliness, or social pressure had no impact on discernment. Is not the request to end one's life a request to end a life that no longer meets socially accepted criteria: being in good health, useful, able-bodied, and not representing a heavy financial burden? Freedom conceived in this way risks becoming a silent pressure, especially for the most vulnerable.
The freedom of every individual must also be considered in its relational dimension: we are interdependent and the choices of some affect others. To make a sick person, a family, or a medical team trained to care for and not to kill, bear the burden of a choice of death is to deny the mystery of communion that binds us to one another. Paul Ricoeur invited us to “think about the responsibility we have towards others, who are entrusted to our care and protection, and not only the responsibility we have towards ourselves.”
Evoking a “law of fraternity” is a lie
Finally, evoking a "law of fraternity" when it comes to killing, to giving someone the possibility of administering a lethal substance, or to inciting a caregiver to do so against their conscience, is a lie. Fraternity, a core value of our Republic, does not consist in hastening the death of those who suffer or forcing caregivers to cause it, but on the contrary in never abandoning those who are going through such difficult and painful times.
Fraternity calls on us to reject once and for all the temptation to kill, and at the same time to commit ourselves resolutely to developing effective palliative care throughout the country, to strengthen the training of caregivers, to support those who provide care, to break the cycle of loneliness, and to recognize that vulnerability is part of the human condition.
We therefore solemnly call on political leaders to consider the anthropological, social, and ethical implications of their debates and votes. We are counting on the personal and courageous decisions of our national elected representatives.
Life, in all its stages and until the end, is not a cause to be championed like any other, with preconceived ideas and the pride of believing ourselves to be all-powerful, but a mystery to be embraced, listening attentively and with humility to those who are pierced by suffering: it takes a great deal of humility to show a little humanity.
Breaking the pact of trust
Our motivation is not primarily or exclusively religious. We want to echo the deep concern expressed by many sick people, people with disabilities, families, and caregivers. With this proposed law, the latter would still be on the front line and required to take actions contrary to the ethics of care and the pact of trust that binds them to patients and their families or loved ones.
There is a high risk of damaging the relationship of trust between the caregiver, the patient, and their close circle.
The vote facing the representatives of the Nation is therefore not only an individual choice, but a choice for society. For beyond “assisted dying,” it is the question of the meaning of life, suffering, and death that confronts us.
Can a human life, however weakened it may be, be decently considered so useless that it should be disposed of? Are we perfectly autonomous beings or people who form alliances to care for one another? Is human anxiety in the face of death an absurdity to be erased or a condition of our existence to be alleviated and accompanied?
We believe that a society grows, not when it offers death as a solution, but when it mobilizes to accompany fragility and protect life, right to the end. The path is demanding, certainly, but it is the only one that is truly human, dignified, and fraternal.
Signatures
[Signed:] The bishops of the Permanent Council of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF)
Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille and President of the CEF
Benoît Bertrand, Bishop of Pontoise and Vice-President of the CEF
Vincent Jordy, Archbishop of Tours and Vice-President of the CEF
Pierre-Antoine Bozo, Coadjutor Bishop of La Rochelle
Sylvain Bataille, Archbishop of Bourges
Nicolas Brouwet, Bishop of Nîmes
Alexandre de Bucy, Bishop of Agen
Jacques Habert, Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux
Alexandre Joly, Bishop of Troyes
Laurent Le Boulc’h, Archbishop of Lille
Luc Meyer, Bishop of Rodez
Pierre-Yves Michel, Bishop of Nancy
Didier Noblot, Bishop of Saint-Flour
Laurent Percerou, Bishop of Nantes
Laurent Ulrich, Archbishop of Paris
Pascal Wintzer, Archbishop of Sens-Auxerre
