Summary
In September 2025, a constitutional bill was introduced by Senator Monique de Marco in the French Senate proposing an amendment to the Environmental Charter (a part of France’s constitutional framework) to explicitly recognize the Rights of Nature. The proposed text seeks to amend Article 1 of the Charter to add “nature and the elements that compose it have the right to exist and evolve as an ecosystem” and that they “benefit from the rights to protection, conservation, maintenance, and, where necessary, restoration.”
The text states that the ambition of the amendment is to move beyond the notion of a “right to a healthy environment” (in place since 2005) and instead confer intrinsic legal value to nature, not as an simply object to be managed but as a subject of law.
Suggested Citation:
Kauffman, Craig, Catherine Haas, Alex Putzer, Shrishtee Bajpai, Kelsey Leonard, Elizabeth Macpherson, Pamela Martin, Alessandro Pelizzon & Linda Sheehan. Eco Jurisprudence Monitor. V2. 2025. Distributed by the Eco Jurisprudence Monitor.https://ecojurisprudence.org/initiatives/france-constitutional-bill-rights-of-nature-environmental-charter-amendment/.
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