Film director Jean-Luc Godard’s death by assisted suicide in Switzerland could be seen as a watershed moment in France, as it coincides with the country’s president renewing debate about expanding end-of-life options. One possibility is that assisted suicide will be legalized in France by next year.  

Under legislation passed in 2016, French doctors can keep terminally ill patients sedated until the advent of death but may not participate in assisted suicide. In Switzerland, by contrast, “the practice is regulated and permitted if offered without a selfish motive to a person with decision-making capacity to end their own suffering,” Agence France-Presse reported. 

Consistent with that definition, Godard’s legal counsel, Patrick Jeanneret, said in a statement to French newspaper Liberation that the director “had recourse to legal assistance in Switzerland for a voluntary departure as he was stricken with ‘multiple invalidating illnesses,’ according to the medical report.”

In France, mourning for the loss of the French New Wave director, perhaps best known by American audiences for his 1960 film “Breathless,” starring Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, dovetailed with a debate riven with thorny ethical issues. France24 reported that President Macron during his campaign for re-election earlier this year had promised to open the euthanasia debate, suggesting he was personally in favor of legalizing physician-assisted suicide.

On Monday, Mr. Macron said, “I am convinced that we must move because there are inhumane situations that persist and to which we must give answers.” He said that a “citizens’ convention” to gauge French opinion on the issue will be undertaken in October and conclude before the end of 2023, with a view to, “if necessary, change the legal framework.” 

That door to a legal change has also been pried open by France’s National Consultative Committee on Ethics, which has deemed “possible” active assistance in dying when “strictly supervised.” Last year one of the committee’s working groups concluded, “There is a path for the ethical application of active assistance in dying, under certain strict conditions to which it seems unacceptable to compromise.”

Radio France Internationale reported that Mr. Macron said earlier this year that he wanted the country to “evolve” toward the “Belgian model” of decriminalizing euthanasia, particularly in cases of serious degenerative disease. Even though French polls in recent years steadily show a broad majority of people are in favor of legalizing euthanasia, it is a hot-button issue. As recently as 2013, the national ethics committee declared that the “prohibition of killing” should remain a founding principle of French society. 

Echoing that sentiment is Le Figaro, the major center-right newspaper, which republished an opinion piece today on euthanasia by Michel Houellebecq. The sometimes polarizing Mr. Houellebecq, who is an influential modern-day French philosopher and enfant terrible of contemporary French literature, wrote that “a civilization that legalizes euthanasia loses any right to respect.” In Mr. Houellebecq’s view, “No one wants to die: We generally prefer a diminished life to no life at all, because there are small joys left.” He added, “Isn’t life anyway, almost by definition, a process of diminishment?”

Like many philosophers, Mr. Houellebecq is sometimes more adept at asking questions than answering them. Be that as it may, France is a country that likes to be in the vanguard, and Mr. Macron is a leader who likes to deliver. Whatever direction it ultimately takes, the euthanasia debate in France, through a confluence of politics and culture, is now squarely on the national agenda.