I discover that PhD students are getting more and more assertive about authorships and coauthorships of scientific papers. These papers will later be the basis for their PhD thesis.

Is your relation with your supervisor so good that you can discuss - or even refuse - a suggested coauthor?
Or is this question only relevant in my field (physics)?

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i'm in social sciences. i believe there are more single-author papers around than multiple-authored ones, and single-authoring is the standard (it is different in disciplines such as psychology and economics which sometimes are counted as social sciences, too).

yes, my relationship to my supervisor is definitely good enough for discussing such issues - if they'd ever come up. i think i would never downright refuse her, but mainly because she would never insist if i had good reasons against it.

Definetly can and have refused to have someone as a co-author. Have also refused a person my supervisor suggested to be my co-supervisor. I find that my supervisor is pretty easy going as long as I have good logical arguments as to why I want/don't want something.