Former sports journalist Charles Biétry suffers from Charcot’s disease which took away his ability to speak. Thanks to the reconstruction of his voice by artificial intelligence, he spoke for the first time of his fight against this pathology in an interview given to the magazine Sept à Huit on TF1.
The illness left her mute. In a moving interview given on Sunday, January 26 to the magazine Seven to Eight on TF1, former journalist Charles Biétry spoke for the first time about his fight against Charcot’s disease, an incurable pathology from which he suffers and which deprives him of speech.
However, viewers were able to hear him answer Audrey Crespo-Mara’s questions thanks to technological prowess. Software that operates using artificial intelligence has made it possible to reproduce “identically” the voice of the famous journalist in order to transcribe his written responses orally.
“The words are in my head and I can’t get them out, so we cower and risk no longer having contact with the outside world,” said Charles Bietry. “I have a few weeks or months left to live. In the meantime, I want to do everything in my power to advance research and other patients.”
Switzerland as a last resort
-Aged 81, the former sports boss of Canal+, who published Wednesday January 29 “ the Last Wave » (ed. Flammarion), the story of his journey as a journalist, also addressed end-of-life issues. He admitted to having planned his assisted suicide even though this subject has still not been able to be debated in the National Assembly.
“Going to commit suicide in Switzerland is not my end-of-life dream“, he admitted. “The car trip, with my wife and two children, the visits from unknown doctors, swallowing the final pill myself, and knowing that all three of them will return to France with the funeral urn in the trunk… More I think about it, the less I want it. Palliative care, if there is a law, might do the trick“.
However, “if the conditions are not met in France for a gentle and calm death, I will go to Switzerland. I am registered, all the papers are signed, the family circle agrees“, warned the former journalist.
