France’s Catholic bishops have hit back against President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed legislation to enable adults facing terminal illness to access assisted suicide.

In a statement, the bishops, who were meeting in Lourdes for their spring plenary assembly, voiced “our great concern and our deep reservations with regard to the bill announced on the end of life”.

Noting that the Marian shrine in Lourdes is traditionally a place where those who are sick come to experience healing, the bishops voiced their solidarity with “the most fragile people” and insisted that all human life must be “unconditionally respected and accompanied with authentic fraternity”.

“We reaffirm our attachment to the French way of refusing induced death,” they said, and asked that priority be given to palliative care instead, saying, “our democratic ideal, so fragile and so necessary, is based on the founding prohibition against killing”.