By Claire Legrand | Editor
A journalist of Belarusian origin, Claire has worked at Purepeople since 2019. An unconditional fan of the Sex And The City series, she also knows most of the RnB sounds of the 90s and 2000s by heart. Blue flower and eternal romantic, she is interested in everything particularly to the love lives of stars.
On September 29, 2024, it has been 10 years since Yves Marchesseau (La Boule in “Fort Boyard”) left us. An emblematic character from France 2 who fought against cancer and heart problems at the end of his life. Very weakened, he made final confidences to “France Dimanche”.
Yves Marchesseau (La Boule in Fort Boyard) weakened and in a wheelchair, his last difficult moments
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Famous for ringing the Fort Boyard gong with great dexterity, La Boule (real name Yves Marchesseau) breathed his last on September 29, 2014 at the age of 62. Victim of cancer, friend of Father Fouras and Passe-Temps, Passe-Muraille and Passe-Partout, Boule struggled and suffered a lot during the last years of his life.
Fighting against heart problems since 2013 but also esophageal cancer, Yves Marchesseau decided to slow down and no longer appear on the famous show Fort Boyardtime to get back on your feet. With our colleagues from France Sunday, he recounted what had triggered this forced break: “Last November, I was at the table with my daughter Stéphanie when I had a stroke.. I was rushed to the hospital and that’s where a CT scan detected my esophageal cancer. (…) Since then, I have been treated. I followed four weeks of radio-chemotherapy in Poitiers.
Yves Marchesseau said he was “done”
Having subsequently lost nearly 20 kilos, Yves Marchesseau was very weakened, could only get around in a wheelchair and had lost “appetite and sleep“. “Today I’m screwed” he said at the time with great sadness.
A few days before his death, he would also have confided about his unhappy childhood as indicated by his daughter Stéphanie on the local Poitou-Charentes branch of France Bleu. “My father was bald when he was little, a birth problem, following an illness. He suffered a lot, the children beat him, he was very unhappy”she confided. And to add the very touching confidences of his father: “Isays that ‘Fort Boyard’ was a revenge on life, because being ‘fat’ and ‘bald’ allowed him to have this role and gave him more than 20 years of happiness“. A great victory for the one who will forever remain an essential character of Fort Boyard.
