In France, the issue has been highly contentious politically, drawing opposition from the Catholic Church and parts of the medical profession.

Although it has now been approved four times in the National Assembly, an upper house dominated by right-wing parties has three times rejected it.

However, opinion polls suggest a large majority of the French people support giving terminally ill people a choice of palliative care or assisted dying.

On the eve of the vote, the French prime minister made clear he intended to submit some of the provisions of the bill to the constitutional council – a nine-member authority that checks whether a law complies with the constitution.

President Emmanuel Macron has long backed end-of-life legislation, but his decision to call snap elections two years ago caused a significant delay to the process.

Since 2024, there has been some reluctance from France’s prime ministers to proceed with the assisted dying bill and Lecornu is known to have his own reservations about its terms.

In a statement ahead of the vote, his office said although the lower house had extensively debated the bill, the Senate had not allowed for scrutiny that met “both the aspirations of its supporters and concerns of those worried about its implementation”.

Lecornu has asked the constitutional council to focus on three aspects of the law:

• the two-day period of reflection given to patients to confirm their request once it has been decided by a doctor, which opponents argue is too short

• the ability of patients under legal protection because of impaired judgement to exercise free and informed consent

• the role of health and social care facilities in providing assisted dying services where their reason for existence is to provide palliative care to those who are terminally ill.