FRANCE’S Senate has adopted a Bill on to enshrine a woman’s right to an abortion in the constitution, clearing a key hurdle for legislation promised by President Emmanuel Macron.

Wednesday’s vote followed the lower-house National Assembly giving overwhelming backing to the proposal in January. The measure now goes before a joint session of parliament for its expected approval by a three-fifths majority next week.

Mr Macron said after the vote that his government was committed to “making women’s right to have an abortion irreversible by enshrining it in the constitution.”

Posting on social media site X, he pledged to convene a joint session of parliament for a final vote on Monday.

Mr Macron’s government wants article 34 of the constitution amended to specify that “the law determines the conditions by which is exercised the freedom of women to have recourse to an abortion, which is guaranteed.”

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti described the vote as “historic” and said: “The Senate has written a new page in women’s rights.”

The government argued in its introduction to the Bll that the right to abortion was under attack in the US after that country’s Supreme Court overturned a 50-year-old ruling in 2022.