The French Senate has approvedr majority the inclusion of “the freedom guaranteed to women to resort to abortion” in the Constitutiona historic step for the country, which becomes the first nation to protect the interruption of pregnancy at a constitutional level.

The proposal, which had been approved at the end of January in the National Assembly, has received the support of 267 senators, while another fifty have opposed it. The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, celebrated the “historic” vote, which opens “a new page in women’s rights.”

The approval of this measure has been a mystery in recent weeks due to the reluctance of some of the main leaders of The Republicans, heirs of the classic French right. In fact, the president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, went so far as to argue that the Constitution “is not a catalog of social rights.”

In fact, the leader ofe The Republicans in the Senate had come to present several amendments in order to modify the text approved by the Lower House. Finally, a few days before, some conservative and centrist deputies have changed their positions, according to BFM TV.

The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, has already celebrated the news and has asserted that it is “committed to making women’s freedom to abort irreversible by enshrining it in the Constitution.” The French president will convene Parliament on March 4 for the final vote.

The French National Assembly approved by a large majority that the Constitution includes guarantees to freely exercise abortion, although the text still had to pass into the hands of a Senate with a conservative majority and which was feared could overturn the measure.