Abstract

How does a state codify temporalities at the end of life? This article explores the ways in which French medico-administrative, institutional and legal dispositions are creating new timeframes for the end of life, new categories of patients and new frontiers between life and death. In particular, a gradual increase in formalizing the terminal phase of patients’ lives, partly distinct from the terminal stage of their illness, leads to identifying specific forms of “bare lives” around which the medical practices of biopower come to be recreated as thanatopower. The article concludes by highlighting the specific features of French governmentality of dying and how it uniquely attempts to overcome the contradictions facing all Western states involved in developing policies for prolonging life.

摘要

一个国家如何在生命的尽头编纂时间性？本文探讨了法国医疗行政、机构和法律处置如何为生命的终结、新的患者类别以及生与死之间的新边界创造新的时间框架。特别是，患者生命的末期逐渐正式化，部分不同于他们疾病的末期，导致识别出特定形式的“赤裸生命”，在这些形式中，生物权力的医疗实践被重新创造为死亡权力。文章最后强调了法国濒死治理的具体特征，以及它如何独特地试图克服所有西方国家在制定延长生命的政策时所面临的矛盾。