France's assisted dying law will apply in January 2027, health minister says

France's health minister, Stéphanie Rist, said on Tuesday that the law creating a right to assisted dying will take effect in January 2027, as the government had planned. "We have always said these decrees would come out in January. They will come out in January, with the law applying in January 2027, as planned," she told the radio station franceinfo, according to AFP.

Rist was asked why a law passed in mid-July was still not in force. Parliament gave final approval on July 15, and President Emmanuel Macron promulgated it in August. But patients cannot use the new right until the government issues the implementing decrees and the national health authority settles which lethal substances may be used.

The decrees matter to both sides. Opponents hope the texts will narrow how the law works in practice, and one prominent opponent has said they will be challenged in court. Supporters want the right to be available as soon as possible, and a new poll for the main pro-legalization group suggests most French people support the law but feel poorly informed about it. This article explains what the law does, what still has to be done, what the Constitutional Council changed, and where the main camps stand. Quotations from French-language sources are 567politics translations.

What the law allows

The law of August 18, 2026, on the right to assisted dying creates a right for a person who asks for it to be authorized to take a lethal substance, with support, and to administer it themselves. Only if the patient is physically unable to do so may a doctor or nurse administer it.

The Constitutional Council's summary lists the conditions a patient must meet:

• be an adult;
• be French, or live in France on a stable and lawful basis;
• have a serious and incurable illness that is life-threatening, in an advanced or terminal phase;
• have suffering linked to that illness that is either resistant to treatment or unbearable to the patient, where the patient has chosen not to receive or to stop treatment;
• be able to express their wishes freely and with full understanding.

AFP describes the last condition as being able to make an informed choice "until the last moment." The law includes a two-day period in which a patient can withdraw, according to the Council's summary of the challenges it received.

The law was published in the Journal officiel on August 19, RTL reported. AFP described it as a major social reform of Macron's presidency, adopted after years of debate.

What still has to happen before January

Several texts are needed before any patient can make a request under the law.

According to RTL, Article 13 requires a decree on how a person asking for help is informed, what form the request must take and how it is confirmed. Another decree must set the composition and working rules of the oversight and evaluation commission, the body attached to the health ministry that will review each case.

Martine Lombard, emeritus professor of public law at Paris-Panthéon-Assas, set out the full list in an analysis for Le Club des Juristes in September. Some decrees must go through the Conseil d'État, France's highest administrative court in its advisory role. A decree on the registry of health professionals willing to take part also needs an opinion from the data protection authority, the CNIL. Under Article 17, the health and social security ministers were to set the price of the lethal preparations and the pay of participating professionals by joint order within three months of promulgation.

The national health authority, the Haute Autorité de santé (HAS), is also working on which substances can be used and how. In a scoping note published in June, its 15-member expert group was due to work until November 1, 2026, RTL reported.

A 2022 government circular asks ministries to publish implementing decrees within six months of a law's promulgation. Six months from August 18 falls in February 2027. In July, Rist's office told franceinfo that work had begun "to allow the law to apply at the start of 2027, under legally sound and fully secure conditions," according to RTL.

Lombard argued the timetable could be affected by politics. Writing in September, she noted that the autumn budget calendar was difficult, and that if the government fell to a censure motion it could be limited to handling current affairs for a time. She wrote that the decrees "must be the work of a fully committed government" for the long legislative process to have its full meaning.

What the Constitutional Council changed

The law drew five separate referrals to the Constitutional Council: from the prime minister, from the president of the Senate, from more than 60 senators of Les Républicains, from more than 60 deputies of the right and center, and from more than 60 deputies of the National Rally, the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.

The challengers argued that the law conflicted with human dignity, that the two-day withdrawal period was too short to guarantee a free and informed decision, and that its terms were too vague. They also argued it infringed the freedom of conscience of heads of institutions, who would have to accept requests.

In its decision of August 14, the Council upheld all the challenged provisions but added three reservations of interpretation:

The Council noted that the wording of the last condition is identical to the rule for abortion in Article L. 2212-8 of the Public Health Code. It also said the legislator had sought to guarantee personal liberty and the right of every person to a dignified end of life.

Lombard argued that the institutional exception "risks creating real dilemmas." Faith-based institutions will easily meet the first condition, she wrote, and the second was designed for abortion, where a woman in early pregnancy can go elsewhere. "How can one expect a patient in acute suffering to inquire about the legal status of a service to know where to go and where not to go?" she asked.

The Catholic Church and other opponents

The Catholic Church in France opposed the law throughout the debate. After it passed, Bishop Matthieu Rougé of Nanterre, the bishops' spokesman on end-of-life issues, told Vatican News that the most worrying point was that institutions whose ethics or religious past reject euthanasia would have to allow it on their premises. "This is not a conscience clause, because conscience concerns the person. It is an institution clause," he said. He named the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Jeanne Garnier palliative care center in Paris as examples, and he also regretted that the law had no conscience clause for pharmacists.

The Council's decision granted both of those requests in part. AFP noted that its extension of the conscience clause to whole institutions matched "a demand from the Catholic world."

Rougé said the Church's answer would be "fraternal engagement" with isolated and vulnerable people, not only moral disapproval. The Catholic Church in France has called the law "a grave anthropological rupture," AFP reported. During a four-day visit to France at the end of September, Pope Leo XIV spoke against assisted dying several times.

Jean-Marie Le Méné, president of the Fondation Jérôme Lejeune, which opposes the law, said in July that the decrees would be taken to court: "We will submit them to the administrative judge."

Supporters and public opinion

Jean-Luc Romero, a delegate of the Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (ADMD), responded to the pope's comments on franceinfo: "He has the right to say what he thinks, but the laws are those of the Republic first, and they are not the laws of the Church."

An Ifop poll for the ADMD, carried out in October among more than 1,000 people and reported by Paris Match, found broad support alongside limited knowledge of the details.

Ifop said the wide support "contrasts with still limited knowledge of its terms and, more broadly, of end-of-life rights." The poll was commissioned by a group that campaigned for the law.

A companion law on palliative care

Parliament passed a separate law on May 26, 2026, to guarantee equal access to palliative care, with near-unanimous support in both chambers, according to Lombard. The assisted dying law requires a doctor who receives a request to tell the patient that palliative care is available and to make sure they can access it if they wish, though it cannot be imposed.

That law also requires the government to report to Parliament within six months on financing palliative care, including a ranking of territories by how accessible such care actually is. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's government is responsible for both sets of implementing texts.

Key dates

• July 15, 2026: final adoption by the National Assembly.
• August 14: Constitutional Council decision with three reservations.
• August 19: law published in the Journal officiel.
• November 1: scheduled end of the HAS expert group's work on substances.
• January 2027: decrees and entry into application, according to Rist.

For background on the parties that referred the law to the Council, see our France country guide. Our methodology page explains how we handle polls commissioned by advocacy groups.