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.