France’s constitution becomes 1st to affirm legal right to abortion
PARIS — French lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill to enshrine abortion rights in France’s constitution, making it the only country to explicitly guarantee a woman’s right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy.
The historic move was proposed by President Emmanuel Macron as a way to prevent the kind of rollback of abortion rights seen in the United States in recent years, and the vote during a special joint session of France’s parliament drew a long standing ovation among lawmakers.
The measure was approved in a 780-72 vote in the Palace of Versailles. Abortion has wide support in France across most of the political spectrum and has been legal since 1975.
Many female legislators in the hall cheered. While a small group of protesters stood outside the joint session, there were jubilant scenes of celebrations all over France as women’s rights activists hailed the measure promised by Macron within hours of the Dobbs ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.
The U.S. case has reverberated across the political landscape in Europe.
Both houses of France’s parliament, the National Assembly and Senate, had separately adopted a bill to amend Article 34 of the French Constitution, but the amendment needed final confirmation by a three-fifths majority in the special joint session.Themeasurespecifies that “the law determines the conditions by which is exercisedthefreedomofwomento have recourse to an abortion, which is guaranteed.”
The French measure is seen as going a step further than was the case in the former Yugoslavia, whose 1974 constitution said that “a person is free to decide on having children.” Yugoslavia dissolved in the early 1990s, and all its successor states have adopted similar measures in their constitutions that legally enable women to have an abortion, though they do not explicitly guarantee it.
In the lead-up to the vote, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal addressed the more than 900 lawmakers gathered for the joint session in Versailles and called on them to make France a leader in women’s rights and set an example for countries around the world.
“We have a moral debt to women,” Attal said. He paid tribute to Simone Veil, a prominent legislator, former health minister and key feminist who in 1975 championed the bill that decriminalized abortion in France.
“We have a chance to change history,” Attal said in a moving speech. “Make Simone Veil proud,” he said to a standing ovation.
Amending the constitution is a laborious process and a rare event in France. Since it was enacted in 1958, the French Constitution has been amended 17 times.
The justice minister said the new amendment will be formally inscribed into the constitution at a public ceremony at Vendome Plaza in Paris on Friday — International Women’s Day.
COVID change: The White House on Monday lifted its COVID-19 testing requirement for those who plan to be in close contact with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses,bringingtoanendthe last coronavirus prevention protocol at the White House.
The White House said the change aligns its policies with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
Argentina media crackdown: Télam workers hug Monday at the state-run news agency in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Télam was inactive Monday, and workers were locked out after President Javier Milei announced its closure Friday. The agency last week relaxed its recommendation that those who test positive for COVID-19 isolate for five days. Now, the agency says people can return to work or regular activities if their symptoms are mild and improving, and it’s been a day since they’ve had a fever.
The White House testing protocol was instituted shortly after the pandemic began in 2020 when former President Donald Trump was in the White House. It was further strengthened by Biden’s administration when he took office amid the pandemic in January 2021.
Both Trump and Biden contracted the virus while in office. Trump required hospitalization after falling seriously ill weeks before the 2020 presidential election; Biden had minimal symptoms after catching it in the summer of 2022 after having been vaccinated.
Haiti attack, curfew: Heavily armed gangs tried to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport on Monday, exchanging gunfire with policeandsoldiersinthelatest attackonkeygovernmentsites inanexplosionofviolencethat includes a mass escape from the country’s prisons.
The Toussaint Louverture International Airport was closed when the attack occurred.
The attack happened just hours after authorities in Haiti ordered a nighttime curfew following violence in which armed gang members overran the two biggest prisons and freed thousands of inmates over the weekend.
A 72-hour state of emergency began Sunday night.
PrimeMinisterArielHenry traveledabroadlastweektotry tosalvagesupportforaUnited Nations-backedsecurityforce to help stabilize Haiti in its conflict with the increasingly powerful crime groups. The prime minister, a neurosurgeon, has shrugged off calls for him to resign and didn’t comment when asked if he felt it was safe to come home.
Texas law halted: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily halted a new Texas law that allows police to arrest migrants who enter the country illegally and set up another showdown over the federal government’s authority over immigration.
Hours after the Justice Department asked the court to intervene, it blocked the Texas immigration law from going into effect until next week. The court also requested a response from the state by Monday.
The emergency request came after a federal appeals court over the weekend stayed U.S. District Judge David Ezra’s sweeping rejection of the law.
The law was set to take effect Saturday. The Justice Department told the court the law would profoundly alter “the status quo that has existed between the United States and the States in the context of immigration for almost 150 years.”
New NATO drills: NATO kicked off an exercise on Monday to defend its newly expanded Nordic territory when more than 20,000 soldiers from 13 nations take part in drills lasting nearly two weeks in the northern regions of Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Sweden and Finland had developed strong ties with NATO after the end of the Cold War, but public opinion remained firmly against full membership until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Red Sea cables cut: Three Red Sea underwater cables providing internet and telecommunications around the world have been cut as the waterway remains a target of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, officials said Monday. Also, a Houthi missile attack set a ship ablaze in the Gulf of Aden but caused no injuries.
What cut the lines remains unclear. There has been concern about the cables being targeted in the Houthi campaign, which the rebels describe as an effort to pressure Israel to end its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis have denied attacking the lines.