End of life: Macron discusses choosing the "lesser evil"

The MPs approved the bill in committee on Friday, after respectful but uncompromising debates on this sensitive subject, which stemmed from a bill requested by the Head of State but which could not be completed due to the dissolution of the Assembly in June.

Interviewed by the Journal du Dimanche this weekend, Prime Minister François Bayrou said he was "spontaneously on the side of caring for and defending life." "But I am not blind. There are extreme situations, cases of suffering and despair that no one can ignore," he added.

"It's a vertigo that affects each and every one of us," the head of state said Monday during a speech to the Freemasons of the Grand Lodge of France. "But the debate, resolutely, cannot be reduced to the question of whether we are for life or against life, or whether, on the one hand, there would be a humanism that would be worth the treatment and, on the other, simply abandoning ourselves to death, no," he affirmed.

"I fear that sometimes, in our debates, things get rushed and forget the depth and sometimes the great difficulty of simply thinking about the lesser evil. Because in certain situations, there is no longer good on one side, evil on the other, but simply a choice in concrete situations, in the solitude of the one who has to die, of his family, of his doctor, the singular path that respects the dignity of each person at every moment," he added.

He congratulated the Freemasons for carrying "this ambition to make man the measure of the world, the free actor of his life, from birth to death."