French lawmakers set to make abortion constitutional right

French lawmakers were expected on Monday to anchor the right to abortion in the country’s constitution, a global first that has garnered overwhelming public support.

A congress of both houses of parliament in Versailles, starting at 3:30pm (1430 GMT), should find the three-fifths majority needed for the change after it overcame initial resistance in the right-leaning Senate.

If the congress approves the move, France will become the only country in the world to clearly protect the right to terminate a pregnancy in its basic law.

President Emmanuel Macron pledged last year to enshrine abortion — legal in France since 1975 — in the constitution after the United States Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, allowing individual American states to ban or curtail it.

In January France’s lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, overwhelmingly approved making abortion a “guaranteed freedom” in the constitution.

The upper house, the Senate, followed suit on Wednesday.

The bill is now expected to clear the final hurdle of a combined vote of both chambers when they gather for a rare joint session at the former royal residence of the Palace of Versailles.

Few expect any difficulty finding the needed supermajority after the three-fifths mark was largely exceeded in both previous ballots.

Most members of the French public support the move to give the right to abortion extra protection.

A November 2022 survey by French polling group IFOP found that 86% of French people supported inscribing it in the constitution.

Abortion opponents, largely marginalised in the move for constitutional change, have planned a protest in Versailles on Monday afternoon.

Macron on Wednesday hailed what he called the Senate’s “decisive step” and immediately called the parliamentary congress.