François Hollande backpedals on the "right to die"

François Hollande didn't actually mention the word, but there's no doubting from what the French president said, that he intends to re-open the debate on euthanasia.

But it's not necessarily in the way he had previously indicated or in line with those who are in favour of a change of in the law to, in their words, allow terminally ill patients to die with dignity.

Hollande was visiting a centre for palliative care in the town of Rueil-Malmaison in the western suburbs of Paris on Tuesday.

François Hollande, Rueil-Malmaison (screenshot BFM TV report)

And it was during his visit that he gave a speech which perhaps indicated that although he was prepared to re-open the debate, he wasn't going to go as far as he had promised in his election manifesto.

Remember Hollande's pledge? It was that, "Each adult in an advanced or terminal phase of an incurable disease...may request, under specific and strictly controlled conditions, to benefit from medical assistance to end his or her life with dignity. "

That was said when running for office.

Now his tone seems to have changed somewhat.

"Can we go further than the current (Leonetti) law?" said Hollande. "A law which already allows those who are terminally ill to refuse treatment they consider unreasonable."

'It's a debate which needs to take place and has to be done with great dignity, avoiding caricature and polemic," Hollande continued, announcing that he was entrusting the former head of national consultative ethics committee, Didier Sicard, with the task of producing a report to find ways of extending palliative care.

All well and good - a debate. But for Jean-Luc Romero, the president of the l'Association pour le droit de mourir dans la dignité (ADMD), it's a sign that Hollande isn't prepared to live up to a promise he had made.

"Producing reports is fine," he said.

"But you don't need yet another report on the ways to go about helping a terminally ill person put an end to their suffering."

"Why doesn't he hold a referendum and actually ask the French what they think about it?"

A missed opportunity for Hollande?

And if he's prepared to change his mind on such an important, if admittedly controversial issue, what about other proposed social reforms such as same-sex marriage and the right for same-sex couples to adopt.

Already draft legislation is reportedly in the pipeline and could be presented to parliament  some time next year.

But could it too ultimately meet the same fate as that of Hollande's apparent U-turn on the right to die with dignity?

"Right to die" campaign targets French presidential candidates

Wednesday sees the launch of a campaign by the L'Association pour le droit de mourir dans la dignité (ADMD) to persuade some of the French presidential candidates to rethink their positions on euthanasia.

ADMD campaign Nicolas Sarkozy (admd.net)

ADMD campaign Marine Le Pen (admd.net)

ADMD campaign François Bayrou (admd.net)

In what the French media is describing as a campaign meant to shock, the association uses retouched images of three presidential candidates, all of whom are opposed to legislation which would, in the words of ADMD, "allow active assistance to those who wish to die".

François Bayrou, Marine Le Pen and Nicolas Sarkozy are all featured, ill in hospital beds and each of them is asked the question, "Do we have to put you in such a position to change your views on euthanasia."

For the association showing each of the three candidates in a position in which they were clearly suffering would "force them to reflect on the important issue of individual freedom" - in other words the right to decide.

While the images are definitely striking, the campaign is not one meant to shock but to change the opinion of the three candidates on the issue of the right to die, according to the president of ADMD, Jean-Luc Romero.

"We're all going to die at some point, but sometimes politicians behave as though they don't know that," he told RTL radio.

"There are millions of French who are regularly confronted with seeing someone in a hospital bed and they don't find it shocking," he continued.

"We wanted to choose the three candidates who were quite adamant that they were against introducing legislation that would allow people to die with dignity."

The campaign is part of an attempt by ADMD to raise an issue, which as far as Romero is concerned, has its place as part of the presidential debate.

At the end of the month the association will hold a rally in Paris and a conference to which it will invite all the presidential candidates.

Is the campaign really going to change the minds or policies of politicians who have already explained why they're against euthanasia?

Is it shocking and perhaps in bad taste?

Or is it a reminder that, if you believe an Ifop poll carried out for ADMD last year, politicians in France are well behind the current thinking of the population at large when it comes to legislation.

"Happy Valentine Nicolas" love Christine

To viewers of TF1's prime time news on Monday evening it must surely have seemed like a (political) declaration of love, as the leader of the Parti chrétien-démocrate (Christian democratic party, PCD), Christine Boutin, withdrew from the presidential race and threw her weight behind Nicolas Sarkozy.

Christine Boutin (screenshot TF1 news)

Mind you, it was hardly a surprise after the weekend's glowing tribute - oops sorry - interview - in the weekend edition of the national daily Le Figaro in which Sarkozy laid out the bones of his electoral campaign - oops, sorry again - his "values for France."

In that interview, Sarkozy - the non-declared candidate to his own succession so obviously not preparing the ground to enter into the fray - expressed his views on, among other things, same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples and a change in the law on euthanasia; "no" in each case.

And as far as Boutin was concerned it was proof that she and Sarkozy were finally singing from the same hymn sheet.

"Nicolas Sarkozy has shown in recent speeches and the interview in Le Figaro that he's in favour of re-inforcing the institution of marriage by rejecting the idea of same-sex marriage and he is against euthanasia," she said.

"He has made the distinction between education and instruction and lifted the taboo on immigration," she continued.

"I would say that Sarkozy has rediscovered the values that I have maintained for more than 30 years of political life," gushed a flushed Boutin.

Ah forgotten were those days when Boutin learned in rather humiliating fashion while watching television that she was no longer a government minister.

There was no longer the threat to "drop an atomic bomb" (rumoured to be a cosying-up to the leader of the centrist party François Bayrou) if she couldn't garner enough support in the form of 500 mayoral signatures necessary to run for president.

No, everything was now lovey-dovey, hunky-dory between Boutin and Sarkozy.

The two had made an "alliance to help Sarkozy win and to help France win" (no, not the Six Nations).

The political sweetener - isn't there always one - was also an apparent promise from Sarkozy to support Boutin's party in the country's parliamentary elections in June by "allowing" the PCD to field a hundred candidates in constituencies unopposed by his Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP).

What a lovely Valentine's gift.

Next up "Monsieur Zero Per Cent" Hervé Morin?

The whole of France now awaits with baited breath for Sarkozy's rumoured declaration on TF1 news some time this week.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Parole directe du 13 février 2012