France has become the first country in the world to explicitly protect the right to abortion in its constitution.
France became the first country in the world to offer explicit protection for terminating a pregnancy in its basic law after its parliament voted to anchor the right to abortion in the country's constitution. A congress of both houses of parliament, gathered in a special chamber at the Palace of Versailles, easily found the three-fifths supermajority needed for the change, with 780 in favour and 72 lawmakers voting against.
In January, France's lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, overwhelmingly approved making abortion a "guaranteed freedom" in the constitution. The upper house, the Senate, followed suit on Wednesday. A majority of the French public support the move to give the right to abortion extra protection, according to polls. A November 2022 survey by French polling group IFOP found that 86 per cent of French people supported inscribing it in the constitution.