| Reservation | What the Council said |
|---|
| Protected adults | The doctor must take into account the views of the person responsible for the patient's legal protection. |
| Pharmacists | Pharmacists preparing or dispensing the lethal preparation cannot be required to take part. |
| Private institutions | The head of a private institution may refuse to let the procedure take place on its premises if it is clearly contrary to its statutory mission, provided other institutions can meet local needs. |
","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"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.\n\nLombard 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.\n\n## The Catholic Church and other opponents\n\nThe 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](https://www.vaticannews.va/fr/eglise/news/2026-07/france-loi-aide-a-mourir-adoptee-reaction-eglise.html) 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.\n\nThe 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.\"\n\nRougé 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.\n\nJean-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.\"\n\n## Supporters and public opinion\n\nJean-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.\"\n\nAn Ifop poll for the ADMD, carried out in October among more than 1,000 people and reported by [Paris Match](https://www.parismatch.com/aide-mourir-alors-que-lentree-en-vigueur-texte-traine-ministre-sante-confirme-son-application-en-janvier-Po9wui6WFplN2NVkXuX5k), found broad support alongside limited knowledge of the details.\n\n**French opinion on the assisted dying law, October 2026 (% of respondents)**\n\nSurvey of more than 1,000 people, commissioned by the pro-legalization ADMD.","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"},{"role":"htmltable","html":"