two French ministers explore the Swiss model

At the ultramodern hospital in Geneva, a behemoth with large bay windows, a new way of dying is gradually being put in place. Since July, seven assisted suicides have taken place within this university hospital. Even in Switzerland, a country where assisted suicide has been a freedom tolerated by the penal code since 1942, this practice in a medical place is debated. Because if it is the patient himself who performs the lethal gesture, welcoming voluntary death in a place dedicated to care raises questions.

Would this possibility be transferable to France? It is in any case the model that Agnès Firmin Le Bodo and Olivier Véran came to discover this Friday during an express trip to Geneva. The issue is of particular interest to the two ministers in charge of the end-of-life debate as they are aware that, in France, caregivers are the main obstacle to a change in the law towards active assistance in dying.

Swiss law says that everyone is entitled to it, but in fact many hospitals and retirement homes do not want assisted suicide within their walls.

Erika Preisig, Medical President of the Lifecircle Foundation

Received by an armada of Swiss officials and doctors, the spokesperson…