On November 9, 2023, the former mayor of Saint-Julien-en-Beauchêne, Jean-Claude Gast, decided to go to Belgium to be euthanized. One year later, and while the bill on the end of life is about to be voted on in the National Assembly by a rare union of deputies from all sides, his son testifies and continues to carry his father's fight .
On November 9, 2023, the family of Jean-Claude Gast said goodbye to the former mayor of Saint-Julien-en-Beauchêne, in Belgium. Nearly 1,000 kilometers from his home and the Southern Alps, the 79-year-old man, seriously disabled after a skiing accident, died after resorting to euthanasia.
A “quite a journey”, remembers his son Yannick, speaking to BFM DICI. “While we could have done that in France, at home,” he whispers.
A year later, he talks about his family's life without “Gastou”. “Obviously it’s been a year for us with ups and downs. With my mother, they lived together for almost 50 years so it’s not always easy,” explains Yannick Gast.
Last NovemberBFM DICI followed the last moments of Jean-Claude Gast. His recourse to euthanasia was also the mark of his fight for active assistance in dying in France, which he hoped would be legalized.
Jean-Claude Gast did not wait to see this hope come to fruition. The subject was nevertheless under discussion in the National Assembly. But as the end-of-life bill entered its very last hours of debate, the dissolution of the National Assembly last June stopped all progress. “We went backwards with the dissolution,” regrets Yannick Gast.
“It is time that these are no longer political battles between the different parties, and that politicians take up these social issues,” says the latter on our antenna.
Today he remains “good hope” of a return to the forefront of the political scene, particularly in the National Assembly.
A “transpartisan” bill
At the Bourbon Palace, the deliberations on the bill should resume where they left off.
“We have significant political diversity, which bodes very well,” rejoices Olivier Falorni, deputy (Les Démocrates) and general rapporteur of the proposed law on the end of life, to BFMTV.com
The deputy for Charente-Maritime, re-elected after the last legislative elections this summer, in fact proposed to his colleagues from nine parliamentary groups (excluding elected Ciottistes and the National Rally) to co-sign the text that he had already presented during of the previous legislature.
“Today, 220 deputies have co-signed it, including the President of the National Assembly, and ranging from LFI to LR,” he explains. RN elected officials also informed him that they would vote in favor of the text.
“Faced with the government's weak capacity to pass laws, this is transpartisan and would be a formidable antidote to political posturing, (…) which will make it possible to improve the quality of parliamentary debate and partly reconcile the French with their Parliament”, assures Olivier Falorni.
In detail, to access active assistance in dying, the applicant will have to seek an initial opinion from a general practitioner. Then a medical college formed by two other health professionals will validate or not the request.
Olivier Falorni explains: “As legislators, we are required to define conditions of access. (…) Being a disabled person is not a condition for being able to access active assistance in dying” .
“The doctor is neither a prognosticator nor a soothsayer, so we have adopted a formulation on the notion of advanced or terminal phase of the pathology or state of health of the patient,” indicates Olivier Falorni.
Two scenarios are currently being considered regarding the vote on first reading of the law. The first would place it next January, after the examination of the 2025 budget, if the government follows its own commitment of “shared legislative time” in the Assembly, between votes on bills brought by the government and proposed laws initiated by MPs. The second scenario would see a vote “in the first quarter of 2025” during the voting weeks reserved for bills in the calendar of the lower house of Parliament.
“A long road” to convince the president
At the microphone of BFM DICI, Jean-Claude Gast sent a message to Emmanuel Macron before dying. “Mr. President, I am not writing you a letter because it is no longer relevant. In two hours, I will die (…) I am currently in Belgium. I had to flee my country, my village”, declared Jean-Claude Gast.
Olivier Falorni confides to BFMTV.com that he has had “several discussions” with the Head of State on the subject of active assistance in dying since his election in 2017. The MP thus evokes “a long road to convince him and to “make it a political priority”. He assures him: “Today, I know that he is convinced of it”.
Even if he has never met “Gastou” or his family, the deputy proposing the bill on the end of life evokes the “enormous admiration and courage” of the Gasts in this ordeal. “This gentleman, whom I have not met, has, through his journey, devoted his last moments of life to fighting for others. It takes a huge dose of courage and self-sacrifice to fight when we know that the law will not be able to apply to oneself, it will be too late.”
“If the law is passed, it will be first of all thanks to them. It is first of all they who convinced the French of the need to evolve, through their testimonies and their courage. I say to the family of this gentleman how proud they can be of the fight, of the message, that it carried and that I would strive to be the bearer of the voice that they gave,” adds the MP.
The courage of Jean-Claude Gast will also be at the heart of a book, which Yannick Gast says he is currently refining. A story in which his son intends to retrace his fight, but also “his relationship with his own father”.
In a survey, carried out in May 2024 by Ifop, the institute noted that “more than nine out of ten French people (92%) say they are in favor of euthanasia when the patient, suffering from an unbearable and incurable illness, is makes the request.
Alixan Lavorel with Valentin Doyen and Thibaut Ghironi
