Suicide from his father: the unrelated letter from Pascal Bataille

In 1999, the life of Pascal Bataille rocks: his father, Marie-José Bataille, psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, ended her life. At the time, Father and Son has been talking about it for six years. The presenter, then in full television ascent, had chosen to cut any contact, refusing calls and letters.

Two weeks before his fatal gesture, his father sends him a final missive. A letter that Pascal Bataille has still not opened twenty-six years later. “He had sent me a letter two weeks before putting an end to his life, which I did not open,” he said in the last issue of “Here”. “It’s been twenty-six years old and I still haven’t read it. I get closer, I’m afraid of what I’m going to discover. “

Riddle by guilt, the host wonders if he could have prevented the irreparable. “If I had opened it at that time, if I had manifested myself, I could have prevented it from committing the irreparable?” This question haunts me, ”he admits lucidly.

In February 2023, in “Chez Jordan”, he revealed that his ex-wife-with whom he remained very close-had read the famous letter. “She said to me,” You can read it, it won’t upset you to read it, “he said then. But even encouraged, Pascal Bataille, today in remission of lung cancer, has not yet found the courage to open this final mail.