IVG in the Constitution: Macron welcomes the “long struggle for freedom” sealed with the “seal of the Republic”

“Necessity and emergency. » President Emmanuel Macron welcomed this Friday the inclusion of abortion in the French Constitution, which was marked by a solemn sealing ceremony at Place Vendôme on the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day. “The seal of the Republic on this day seals the long struggle for freedom, a struggle made up of tears, drama, broken destinies,” he insisted four days after that historic vote.

Thus, the president paid tribute to “generations of women deprived of the most intimate choice: to have or not to have a child,” “with suffering on their faces,” forced to resort to dangerous “covert operations” to be able to still have an abortion and face “ suspicions” and “sermons”. The head of state also paid tribute to several figures who broke the taboo on abortion and moved the fight forward, such as writers Simone De Beauvoir and Annie Ernault.

“Capture the irreversible”

Faced with the “failures of our time,” it is more necessary than ever to protect this right, he stressed. “Around the world, including in major democracies, we are seeing the decline of abortion rights,” he continued, referring, without naming them, to the United States, where abortion rights were blown up by the Supreme Court in 2022. “Because the unthinkable happens, we had to capture the irreversible,” he insisted.

A strong gesture that the head of state now wants to take to the European level: he confirmed his desire to include the “freedom to resort” to abortion “in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,” where, in his words, “nothing exists.” can be taken for granted and everything must be protected.” “Beyond Europe, we will fight to make this right universal and effective,” said Emmanuel Macron, believing that “progress in women’s rights is progress in human rights.”

In his speech, the leader also congratulated all the political figures who worked on the vote, noting in particular the president of the LFI group in the National Assembly, Matilda Pano, and the environmentalist senator Melanie Vogel, who have been involved in this fight for several months. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal was criticized for not mentioning their names during his speech to Congress.

A few minutes earlier, Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti had put the seal of the republic on a law that included the “guaranteed freedom” of access to voluntary termination of pregnancy in the Constitution.

He held in his hands the press of 1810, specially taken out of his office, in complete silence, amid prolonged applause from the guests and several hundred people who came to attend the ceremony of sealing the Constitution. Singer Katherine Ringer then sang a vibrant “La Marseillaise” to close the ceremony, which was revisited to celebrate “pure law in the Constitution.”