'End point of a long struggle' as France inscribes right to abortion in constitution
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00:00 It's official, France has become the first country in the world to enshrine abortion
00:06 as a right protected by the Constitution.
00:11 Once again, Annette Young joins me on the set.
00:14 She is the host of France 24's women's program, the 51%.
00:19 Annette, a big major speech for the Emmanuel Macron administration to celebrate this.
00:26 A big achievement for the country though.
00:28 It's an historic day for France because this indeed means that this nation has become the
00:33 first in the world to enshrine reproductive rights within the Constitution.
00:38 And it's an end point of a long struggle there where President Macron gave the audience a
00:44 sense of the history attached to this move.
00:47 And of course, perhaps the one woman that we can thank more than ever is Simone Weil,
00:53 who back in 1974 pushed very hard for abortion to become legal in France.
01:01 And as a result, there were a number of people, particularly on the right side of the political
01:06 spectrum who are arguing why the need to enshrine it in the Constitution when it's been law
01:10 for 50 or so years.
01:13 Well, again, as I was saying earlier, we only have to look across at the Atlantic to see
01:18 we can't take anything for granted, that laws that have been in place for over a half a
01:24 century can be rolled back, particularly if you have a head of state or somebody who's
01:30 leading the country who feels that reproductive rights are not needed.
01:35 And bodily autonomy is key.
01:38 Keep in mind, as I keep saying, and this is what he talked about as well, the progress
01:42 of women's rights is the progress of human rights.
01:45 51% of the population, if you can't get it right for 51% of the population, what does
01:50 it mean for other communities, other minorities?
01:54 So it is integral that this indeed happened.
01:57 President Macron there talking about this is for every woman who's had to live in the
02:02 shadow of shame.
02:04 Very moving words because as you and I know, Will, over our lifetimes, the view towards
02:09 abortion has changed.
02:11 It's become more and more accepted, but again, it's not something that's openly recognised
02:16 or talked about the way that it should be.
02:19 So the key message today is that France supports bodily autonomy for every woman living in
02:25 its country.
02:26 And Annette, any idea what happens next?
02:30 I think what's interesting is he was talking about the push there to include such a, the
02:37 right itself in the chart of rights for the EU, but that's going to be an interesting
02:41 scenario because within the EU, what we're witnessing at the moment is a swing towards
02:45 the far right.
02:47 And I can't imagine a country like Hungary and its leader, Viktor Orban, being supportive
02:53 of such a measure.
02:55 Primarily, for instance, Will, in Hungary, women who ask for abortion are told that they
03:01 need to listen to the heartbeat of their fetus before they go ahead with the procedure.
03:07 We've seen people such as Italy, just Giorgia Maloney, who at this point hasn't done anything,
03:13 but certainly the concerns are in Italy among Italian feminists that that country might
03:19 also see a move to restrict or roll back abortion rights.
03:25 By contrast, in Poland, for instance, we've seen Donald Tusk become prime minister.
03:31 He's taken over from the far right Law and Justice Party, who basically implemented an
03:36 abortion ban much to the anger of many Polish women.
03:40 Donald Tusk has a very difficult job ahead of him, apparently, to overrule and roll back
03:46 that ban.
03:48 But it will be interesting to see what plays out now in Europe.
03:51 And France, indeed, has set an example.
03:54 Let's see who, indeed, has the political wherewithal to do the same.