In 2019, the journalist Claude Sempere lost his battle against illness. After having recovered from two cancers in the past, the great reporter for the television news of France 2 andCorrespondent died of a rare malignant tumor. He was 55 years old and left behind his loved ones, including his wife Dominique Lagrou-Sempere and their two children Mathilda (19 years old) and Esteban (16 years old).
Almost six years after the disappearance of her husband, the woman who was also a journalist, notably for TF1’s 1 p.m. with the late Jean-Pierre Pernaut, shared her story for the media Ladies. “One morning we are at my parents’ house in Normandy, and then I see him suffocating. Obviously: firefighters, hospital, a biopsy of his lungs is done and there are small spots that appear. When the doctor tells us that he has mesothelioma, Claude collapses and I tell him you know we’re going to get through this and I see in his eyes that he’s going to fight but that it’s much more serious. When I leave the room, I try to scream, it doesn’t come out. Without knowing it, I already understand that I have fallen into the beginning of my other life“, she remembered.
The last moments of Claude Sempere
And then, for two years, Dominique Lagrou-Sempère remembers having had a role “caregiver“while continuing to be a full-time mother and journalist.”I’m on the air so I have to look good“, she emphasizes. In intimacy, the smiles fade and leave more room for “cries, nausea, tears“, until silence.”One morning while I am at work, I receive a phone call from Claude and I hear a scream, I rush home and help arrives at the same time as me. Claude is in our room, on the bed and I see him with an oxygen mask and the doctors make me understand that they have to put him in a coma in order to be able to take him to the hospital. This is the last time that Claude will be on this bed, that Claude will be in this house“, she reported.
Since then, Dominique Lagrou-Sempère has been reduced to the status of “veuve“, which she hates.”I’m angry, and this anger keeps me going. Just to say, this society puts us in boxes where we think we feel things for us, well no“.
Despite the pain and anger, the pretty brunette managed to rebuild herself. She left journalism to become a self-employed entrepreneur. What’s more, she found love again. “I accepted to live and I accepted to love again, regardless of the injunctions, the limiting thoughts, the views of others. At 50, I am a woman who is simply reborn“, she concluded her testimony.
