October 5, 2025
Suspended prison sentences sought against French assisted suicide activists
On Thursday in France, the public prosecutor sought up to 18 months’ suspended prison sentences in the trial of 12 assisted dying activists, refocusing a hearing which had turned into a platform for assisted suicide, on the facts of barbiturate trafficking.
Members of Ultime Liberté face justice: the end-of-life debate comes to court
Aged between 74 and 89, twelve members of the Ultime Liberté association are on trial in Paris for having, between August 2018 and November 2020, helped dozens of people to buy pentobarbital, a barbiturate that causes rapid and painless death, on the internet.
These pensioners are only being prosecuted for offences related to trafficking in illicit substances, not for incitement or assistance in suicide.
‘It is neither my role nor the purpose of this trial to deliver a plea on end-of-life issues,’ warned prosecutor Dorothée Branche at the beginning of her two-hour closing speech.
‘Why, after all, prosecute twelve elderly people who acted for humanitarian and political reasons?’ asked the representative of the public prosecutor’s office.
Born out of a split from the most radical fringe of the large pro-euthanasia organisation ADMD, Ultime Liberté ‘does not just engage in political lobbying, it provides concrete support to its members by offering them assistance and, in some cases, pentobarbital, which they consider to be the ideal magic potion for dying,’ the prosecutor described.
Currently restricted to veterinary use in France as an anaesthetic and euthanasia drug, pentobarbital is a psychotropic central nervous system depressant used for assisted suicide in countries where the practice is legal, such as Belgium and Switzerland.
However, ‘all the defendants knew full well that pentobarbital was an illegal poisonous substance and, dissatisfied with this state of the law, they chose to dictate their own law to allow the acquisition and importation of pentobarbital into the country,’ said the prosecutor.
‘Humanitarian motive’
The most severe sentence of eighteen months’ suspended imprisonment was sought against Claude Hury, the president of Ultime Liberté, an association ‘which knows full well that its activity since its creation has been illegal’.
For retired doctor Bernard Senet, a physician who has performed euthanasia, the prosecution sought a three-year ban on practising medicine in addition to a twelve-month suspended prison sentence.
Taking into account the ‘humanitarian motive’ as well as the defendants’ lack of criminal records or financial gain, the prosecution did not seek any fines.
By calling numerous supporters to the stand, including intellectuals, doctors in favour of euthanasia and anonymous individuals who had sought assistance in dying for loved ones in great suffering, the defence turned the hearing into a platform for assisted dying.
‘A biased, militant presentation,’ said the representative of the prosecution. ‘Pentobarbital has no place outside the pharmaceutical circuit,’ argued Jean-François Laigneau, lawyer for the Order of Pharmacists, the only civil party in the case.
‘We are talking about a product for veterinary use with which, literally, (…) horses are put down.’
Ultime Liberté’s highly divisive campaign goes beyond the traditional pro-euthanasia associations’ demand for a ‘right to assisted dying’ for terminally ill patients in great suffering.
The association demands the right to a ‘peaceful’ suicide, whether or not the person is ill, as long as the person making this choice is in full possession of their faculties and their decision is well thought out.
Passed at first reading in May by the National Assembly and awaiting review by the Senate, a bill proposed by MP Olivier Falorni (Modem) would create a ‘right to assistance in dying’ in France.
It would legalise assisted suicide and, in exceptional cases, euthanasia, without these negatively connoted words appearing in the text.
After three weeks of hearings, the trial is scheduled to end on Friday with the defence’s closing arguments.
Philip Nitschke & Claude Hury, April 2025, France