After the adoption by the Senate of the bill aimed at enshrining in the Constitution the freedom to have recourse to an abortion, Parliament is convened, this Monday, March 4, in Congress at the Palace of Versailles.
Last step to make France the first country to include the right to abortion in its Constitution. After the National Assembly’s vote at the end of January, the Senate adopted, on February 28, the inclusion in the Constitution of “the guaranteed freedom” of women “to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy”.
Emmanuel Macron thus summoned Parliament in Congress this Monday March 4 at the Palace of Versailles for the final stage of the parliamentary path of this historic constitutional revision. The Congress is the meeting of the two chambers, the National Assembly (lower house) and the Senate (upper house), in a place different from the usual institutions. A procedure that is rarely used and can be complex.
Four days before March 8, International Women’s Day, the date March 4 is very symbolic. The 925 members of Parliament will travel by bus to the Palace of Versailles this Monday. They will sit in the hemicycle of the South wing, a suitable space large enough to accommodate them. Unlike the Assembly or the Senate, the elected officials will be installed in alphabetical order and not by political group. The session, which will be chaired by Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the National Assembly, is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. Emmanuel Macron will not be present, according to information from BFMTV. The session will begin with a speech by the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, the only member of the government who will speak before the vote.
To ratify the inclusion of this reform in the Constitution, a three-fifths majority of the votes cast by deputies and senators (i.e. 577 deputies and 348 senators) will be required. The constitutional revision therefore needs to obtain 555 votes. Open for 45 minutes, the result of the vote is expected around 6:30 p.m.
Since Emmanuel Macron came to power, Congress has only met twice. In 2017 and 2018, the President of the Republic set out the broad outlines of his policy before elected officials. The last constitutional revision dates back to 2008. It was on the occasion of the constitutional law to modernize the institutions of the Fifth Republic. Since 1958, of 24 constitutional amendments, 21 have been approved by Congress.
