Macron says battle for abortion rights is not over as France updates constitution

President says France ‘will not rest until promise is kept throughout world’, as it becomes first to explicitly protect rights

In an emotional ceremony marking the enshrining of the right to an abortion in the French constitution, Emmanuel Macron said the historic change was the sealing of a long battle for “freedom, a fight made up of tears, tragedies and broken destinies”.

He said the occasion was a reminder of “the fate of generations of women deprived of the most intimate of choices: whether or not to have a child”.