“Lead the world in this same movement”: France wants to show the way to other countries for the protection of abortion

Le scellement de la Constitution assuré par Éric Dupond-Moretti, vendredi à Paris. MAXPPP – Gonzalo Fuentes/POOL

Emmanuel Macron calls for this freedom to be included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

France shows the way. Emmanuel Macron requested, on Friday, the inclusion of the freedom to resort to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, at a time when France was engraving this great principle in its fundamental law.

An ambition announced by the Head of State on the occasion of International Women's Rights Day marked by more than 200 demonstrations across the country to demand equality man-woman and sometimes also welcome this evolution.

A world first

"France has today become the only country in the world whose Constitution explicitly protects the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy, in all circumstances. And we will only find rest when this promise is kept everywhere in the world, underlined the President of the Republic, Place Vendôme, in Paris.

Emmanuel Macron presided over the sealing ceremony, open to the public for the first time to give emphasis to this final symbolic step reflecting the historic vote of Congress on Monday.

This sealing, the affixing of a wax seal on the amended Constitution, was ensured by the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, in the presence of members of the government, feminist activists and personalities like the actress Catherine Deneuve and the singer Catherine Ringer, who reinterpreted La Marseillaise by feminizing it

The "setbacks of our times"

In his speech, the Head of State denounced the "setbacks of our time"& nbsp;and targeted "reactionary forces" which "s’en take first and always the rights of women before then attacking the rights of minorities, of all the oppressed, of all freedoms.

"This is why I would like this guaranteed freedom to resort to voluntary termination of pregnancy to be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the ;rsquo;European Union", he added to the applause of the audience.

"A strong signal" addressed "to the whole world"

The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, called to go further and "bring the world into this same movement&quot ;. Spain is already thinking of following suit. France sent this week "a strong signal to the whole world", observed the newspaper Die Welt in Germany.