Affected by the incurable disease for five years, the sports journalist said he organized his assisted suicide in Switzerland, in an interview with the daily L’Equipe.
- Charles Biétry, sports journalist, has suffered from Charcot’s disease for five and a half years.
- In the daily L’Equipe, he confided that he organized his assisted suicide in Switzerland.
- Incurable, Charcot’s disease generally results in the death of patients between 3 and 5 years after diagnosis.
“A progressive paralysis with a fatal outcome.” I’Inserm thus describes Charcot’s disease. Charles Biétry, sports journalist and figure of Channel +, has suffered from it for five and a half years. In a daily interview The Teampublished on April 8, he confides that he organized his assisted suicide in Switzerland.
ALS: a progressive and fatal paralysis
“We organized everything with my wife and my childrenhe explains. I don’t want to be plugged into a machine to breathe when there is nothing left, no future.” According to Inserm, patients typically die within three to five years of diagnosis. “Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Charcot’s disease, is a serious neurodegenerative disease that results in progressive paralysis of muscles involved in voluntary motor functionsays the institute. It also affects phonation (the production of sounds) and swallowing.” Often, paralysis of muscles related to breathing leads to death.
Assisted suicide:It is not so simple”says Charles Biétry
“The stages, I know them: lower limb, upper limb, throat and larynx… Here I amCharles Biétry told The Team. Then you move on to the first category neck stages with the difficulty, even the impossibility, of swallowing (…) The next stage is the attack on the lungs. (…) When it doesn’t work anymore, I want to stop.” If he explains that all the papers are signed for assisted suicide in Switzerland, he recognizes that the decision remains difficult to make. “You have to take the last pill yourself, recalls the sports journalist. This gesture, it’s easy to say ‘I’ll do it’ when I’m at the seaside in Carnac (where he lives, editor’s note). When someone hands you the pill and tells you that two minutes later you’ll be dead, it’s not that simple.”
Charles Biétry: how did sport help him deal with Charcot’s disease?
The former sports director of Canal + is a sports enthusiast, especially the bike he practices. AT The Team, he explains that it helped him deal with the disease, despite doctors’ advice to the contrary. “As I was doing everything to rebuild muscles that were leaving“before diagnosis,”the disease took a long time to catch the eye”, he explains. “To keep my spirits up, I need sport. The day when I can no longer ride a bike, it will go very quickly“, he warns.
Assisted suicide: a “desired” bill by the end of the summer
These confessions of Charles Biétry come a few days after announcements by Emmanuel Macron concerning the end of life. On April 3, the Head of State said “to wish” that a bill on the end of life be prepared by the end of the summer of 2023. If the Citizens’ Convention devoted to this theme had voted 76% in favor of active assistance in dying, the President of the republic remained evasive on this principle. In Europe, so-called active euthanasia is authorized in four countries, in addition to Switzerland: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Spain.
