Laura Terrazas
Published
January 26 at 8:48 p.m.,
updated January 26 at 8:55 p.m.
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Deprived of his ability to speak, the journalist suffering from Charcot's disease testified to Audrey Crespo-Mara in “seven to eight” over the few weeks that remains to live with a voice generated by artificial intelligence.
An unprecedented testimony on television. “The words are in my head, but I can't get them out”explains Charles Biétry with a voice whose stamp and tone resemble his family. Affected by Charcot's disease, the journalist has lost the use of speech and accepted that his answers to Audrey Crespo-Mara questions will be transcribed thanks to artificial intelligence.
It is in his house in Carnac, in Brittany, that the cameras of “seven to eight” arose. In the company of his wife, Charles Biétry evokes his fight against the disease: “I am at war. I know I'm going to lose one day, but for those around me, I have to fight. Bretons are a people who never give up ”.
Charles Biétry no longer speaks, no longer has balance and begins to lose weight because food is becoming more and more difficult. An abdominal probe is now necessary. He has daily sessions with a physiotherapist so as not to lose what remains of muscles.
The disease gives me an appointment with death.
-Charles Biétry in “Seven to eight”
It was in 2022 that the diagnosis was made, at the CHU de Bordeaux. “This charcot is strong, he attacks on all sides and he kills. The disease gives me an appointment with death ”describes Charles Biétry who received two years later, in the spring of 2024, as “A gift from the sky” The bill for helping to die. “It's already hard to die, but then to die, it's the double penalty”estimates the journalist before adding: “Suffering at the bottom of a hospital bed, suffocating, no longer having the slightest exchange with those you love and who are difficult to see you hope for death while knowing that there is no way out , it's hard “.
“When we hear on the television sets those who campaign against us who want to go into dignity or simply choose freely, it is abject. A law will give serenity in freedom ”continues the interlocutor of Audrey Crespo-Mara. But the dissolution of the National Assembly last summer by Emmanuel Macron froze any policy in France: “I am waiting for the deputies to vote for this law unanimously and that I can wait for death quietly without being a ball for mine”.
Laugh to the end
He would like to avoid going to Switzerland, where assisted death is legal. “Going suicide in Switzerland is not the dream of my end of life. Unknown doctors, swallow the last cachet myself and know that my wife and two children will return to France with the funeral urn in the trunk … the more I think about it, the less I want ”says Charles Biétry who has already scheduled this last trip.
“If in France the conditions are not met for a gentle and roughly calm death, I will go. All papers are signed, the family circle agrees ”he assures. He concluded with the adage of his wife who has shared his life for 45 years: “We will laugh to the end”.
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