After those on climate and end of life, a new citizens’ convention will be launched by the end of the year, Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday April 26. “A third convention will be launched soon, it is intended to be completed by the end of the five-year term,” he declared during an exchange with the members of the citizens’ convention on the end of life at the Economic Council, social and environmental (CESE).
The theme will be studied in conjunction with the CESE “in the coming months,” added Mr. Macron. “We can totally imagine having citizen initiative conventions,” also noted the Head of State.
The end-of-life convention brought together some 200 randomly selected French people for several months to consider changing the law on end-of-life matters, then make recommendations. This work resulted in a project presented on April 10 in the Council of Ministers and which began its legislative journey, likely to last up to two years, on Monday in the National Assembly.
Assistance in dying will be reserved for adult patients, born in France or residing in the country for a long time, and able to clearly express their wishes. It will also be necessary to experience intolerable and impossible to treat suffering, physical or psychological. Finally, life must be in danger in the short or medium term.
Macron does not rule out resorting to referendums
The Head of State praised the work of the convention on the end of life, considering that “on a subject with such an ethical dimension”, it constituted “one of the factors in appeasing society while moving it forward “.
Faced with “disinterest in public affairs”, “I am convinced that deliberative and participatory democracy is a way to put the pieces back together”, he added, while recognizing that certain elements of the first convention had been “much less well organized.” For many observers, the executive had neglected the conclusions of the citizens’ climate convention.
Furthermore, Emmanuel Macron has not ruled out resorting to referendums. “I am thinking about several referendums that I could take the initiative in,” he said. “I want to do it at the right time,” he added, recalling that the referendum was often “rarely the answer to the question asked and rather “yes or no” to the person asking it.”