Portside

The French parliament has enshrined abortion as a constitutional right at a historic joint session at the Palace of Versailles.

Out of 925 MPs and senators eligible to vote, 780 supported the amendment, which will give women the “guaranteed freedom” to choose an abortion.

The measure had already been passed by the upper and lower houses, the Sénat and the Assemblée Nationale, but final approval by parliamentarians at the joint session at Versailles was needed to effect constitutional change.

The prime minister, Gabriel Attal, told those gathered in the opulent Congress Hall in the palace’s Midi wing: “We are haunted by the suffering and memory of so many women who were not free. We owe a moral debt [to all the women who] suffered in their flesh.

“Today, the present must respond to history. To enshrine this right in our constitution is to close the door on the tragedy of the past and its trail of suffering and pain. It will further prevent reactionaries from attacking women.

“Let’s not forget that the train of oppression can happen again. Let’s act to ensure that it doesn’t, that it never comes this day.”

He added: “I say to all women within our borders and beyond, that today, the era of a world of hope begins.”

Mathilde Panot, an MP from the hard-left France Unbowed, who proposed inscribing the abortion rights in the constitution, told the meeting it was “a promise … for all women fighting [for them] everywhere in the world”.

She added: “Your fight is ours. This victory is yours.”

The president, Emmanuel Macron, said he had promised to make women’s freedom to choose an abortion “irreversible”. Writing the right to abortion into the constitution, which involved amending the 17th paragraph of article 34 that defines the law and its limits, was seen as a way of protecting the law that decriminalised abortion in France in 1975.

During the national assembly debate on the law in January, the justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, told MPs that abortion rights were not simply a liberty like any other, “because they allow women to decide their future”.

Aurore Bergé, the minister in charge of equality and the fight against discrimination, added: “This vote will be one of the most important and remarkable of this parliament.”

Once the two houses had agreed the wording of the legal text, Macron had the choice to hold a national referendum or call a joint parliamentary “congress” made up of 577 MPs and 348 senators at Versailles where it required three-fifths of votes cast to pass.

Monday’s session is the first to be held to change the constitution since 2008, when Nicolas Sarkozy took steps to modernise French institutions, including limiting presidents to a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms in office.

Since 1958, the parliamentary congress has met 16 times and made 21 changes to the constitution.

The congress was overseen by Yaël Braun-Pivet, from Macron’s Renaissance party, who is the equivalent of speaker of the lower house, and parliamentarians were seated in alphabetical order.

The leaders of 18 political groups – 10 from the lower house, eight from the upper – were invited to each speak for five minutes on the change before the vote.

Members of parliament listen to the French prime minister in the Palace of Versailles. Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA

The text will now be authenticated by a “seal of congress” and sent to the government. Macron will attend a ceremony to finalise the constitutional amendment on Friday, International Women’s Day.

Political impetus was given to the constitutional change after the US supreme court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, a ruling that had recognised women’s constitutional right to an abortion and had legalised it nationwide.

Rightwing senators from the Républicains party voted against a first attempt to change the constitution in October 2022. Later that year, the French parliament voted to extend France’s legal limit for ending a pregnancy from 12 to 14 weeks, amid anger that thousands of women were forced to travel abroad each year to terminate pregnancies in countries including the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

Anti-abortion protesters gathered in Versailles near the palace to oppose the constitutional change.

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