The efforts of many pro-life organisations, citizens and groups have ended in disappointment after three long years of campaigning, as France passed the ‘Law on active assistance in dying’ on 15 July.

Christians of all backgrounds, including Evangelicals, had written to Members of Parliament, spoken to the government and tried to minimise the impact of a law that had the full support of President Emmanuel Macron, and which they considered radical.

After being passed twice in the lower house and rejected twice in the Senate, the final vote in the National Assembly ultimately confirmed the legalisation of assisted dying and euthanasia in France.

The vote ended with a narrow margin of 291 votes in favour, 241 against, and 29 abstentions.

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A significant number of MPs who had initially supported the bill joined the opposition as the legislative process progressed, although not enough to sway the outcome.

In 2025, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had expressed its concern about how the law may affect people with disabilities.

Evangelicals express “deep sadness” at the “ethical rupture”

The National Council of Evangelicals of France (CNEF, the country’s Evangelical Alliance) expressed its “deep sadness” and “grave concern at this major ethical and anthropological turning point for our country”.

The CNEF, which has a legal department and another focused on socio-political issues, had been heavily involved in the debate. Since the debate began in 2023, they have “consistently reaffirmed a fundamental conviction, rooted in the Gospel: every human life possesses intrinsic and absolute value, from its beginning to its natural end”.

“This is not fraternity”

A fundamental principle that the law will undermine, the CNEF believes, is the Christian conviction that “the dignity of a sick or elderly person does not depend on their degree of physical autonomy, but on the love, respect and protection that society shows them right up to their last breath”.

The organisation, which represents 750,000 Evangelicals and brings together 2,500 local churches of all denominations, “strongly objects to the use of the concept of ‘fraternity’ to describe this bill”.

“True fraternity does not consist in hastening the death of those who are suffering, but in never abandoning them”, they add.

“Pressure” to carry out euthanasia

The CNEF says that it “fears the indirect moral pressure now being exerted on the most vulnerable people, who may come to see themselves as a burden on their loved ones or on national solidarity”.

For many organisations, the emphasis should have been on prioritising the effective and equitable development of palliative care, which remains tragically inaccessible in many regions, thereby creating a social injustice”.

The French Senate, in its latest vote in May, had moved in this very direction.

Ethical dilemmas for healthcare professionals

The evangelical organisation has expressed its “gratitude to carers, particularly evangelical healthcare professionals, who now find themselves on the front line facing unprecedented ethical dilemmas”.

For the CNEF, the “right to conscientious objection” is now essential to allow healthcare professionals opposed to euthanasia or assisted dying to be exempt from participating in procedures that end patients’ lives.

“Faced with this ethical crisis, CNEF calls on the evangelical Protestant churches of France to redouble their efforts in providing support, visiting and offering comfort. Today more than ever, our local communities are called upon to be witnesses of hope, presence and practical solidarity amongst the most vulnerable”, it concluded.

CPDH criticises the “abandonment” of the vulnerable

Other Christian organisations, such as the Protestant Evangelical Committee for Human Dignity (CPDH), have described the law now being passed as an “abandonment” of those who are suffering.

“A society that condemns its most vulnerable members to death before guaranteeing them care, support and dignity in their daily lives is abdicating its responsibility,” said the CPDH. “Euthanasia does not represent a step forward for freedom when it undermines fraternity, a founding value of our Republic”.