France's National Ethics Committee has said that euthanasia may be allowed in certain circumstances.

But the Committee underscored that this does not mean euthanasia should be decriminalised.

In a report, which took three years to prepare, the committee speaks of the need for compassion where therapy has failed and when patients ask to be relieved of unbearable suffering.

"If there is no other solution, if palliative care and pain-killers are ineffective, if all treatment or therapy has failed, if there is unanimous agreement that the situation has become intolerable, then one can envisage euthanasia," said Ethics Committee President Dr Didier Sicard.

It marks a turnaround in the committee's thinking and its first recommendations on euthanasia for nine year.

In 1991, it rejected a European Parliament proposal that euthanasia be carried out in hospitals and care centres.

Consultative powers

The committee only has consultative powers, but most of its recommendations to French lawmakers are heeded.

It has made recommendations on sensitive topics such as the sterilisation of the mentally handicapped and obligatory psychiatric care for rapists.

In its reports, the Committee admits that mercy killings are a reality in France's hospitals.

According to one of the men, who sit on the committee, there are about 2,000 clandestine acts of assisted suicide in France each year.

A study in a leading scientific journal concluded that almost half the deaths in French intensive-care units were the result of what could be described as passive euthanasia - a decision to stop treatment reached with the consent of close family members.

The Netherlands is the only European country where euthanasia is legal.