Why did Alain Cocq not benefit from active assistance in dying?

Dijon (Côte-d'OR), August 12, 2020. Disabled, Alain Cocq asked to be able to benefit from active assistance in dying.

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• Aged 57, Alain Cocq is affected by a disease so orphaned that it does not even have a name.

  The walls of her arteries stick together and her condition deteriorates.

• Tireless activist for the cause of people with disabilities, he warned the Elysee that he would stop eating and hydrating from this Friday if Emmanuel Macron does not legalize medical aid in dying.

• In a letter dated Thursday, the president indicated that he could not accede to his request, not being “above the law”.

Man plans to die live on Facebook ,.

Heavily disabled and affected by an incurable disease, Alain Cocq, 57, confirmed that he was going to put his project into action tonight.

In great pain, he had asked Emmanuel Macron in recent weeks in order to be able to benefit from active assistance in dying.

In a letter dated Thursday, the head of state refused to accede to his request, explaining that assisted suicide was not authorized by French law.

As a result, from his medical bed in Dijon (Côte-d'Or), Alain Cocq announced that he would stop eating and hydrating from this Friday to alert on the situation of people at the end of life.

analyzes why he was unable to benefit from active assistance in dying.

What pathology does Alain Cocq suffer from?

The orphan disease from which the Dijonnais suffers is so rare that it does not even have a name.

According to him, only three people in the world show symptoms.

“And two died of it,” he says without being able to verify it.

Concretely, the walls of the arteries of this 57-year-old man stick together, which leads to ischemia (stopping or insufficient circulation of blood in a tissue or organ).

If the doctors noticed it during a benign knee operation following a fall in 1986, Alain Cocq claims to have felt the first symptoms when he was "12 or 13 years old".

Today, he feels electric shocks in his body "every two or three seconds", can no longer get up from his medical bed and gradually loses the use of speech, hearing and sight. .

Why can't we say that it is "at the end of its life" and what does that change?

Even if Alain Cocq claims to be in "terminal phase for 34 years", he is not today "at the end of his life".

In great pain, this former plumber is unable, however, to prove that his life is threatened in the very short term.

This makes a real difference.

The Claeys - Leonetti law (2015) indeed provides for the possibility of “deep and continuous sedation” for patients in pain and at the “end of life”.

In fact, Alain Cocq cannot therefore benefit from this provision, in the strict sense.

However, if he puts into execution, this Friday evening, his plan to let himself die of hunger and thirst by ceasing to eat and hydrate, he will quickly pass to the "end of life" and will be able to dispose of the sedation prescribed by law.

In this context, why does he refuse to do so?

Tireless activist for the disabled cause, Alain Cocq quickly ruled out the idea of ​​being able to benefit from continuous sedation until his death.

First, because he wishes to remain "conscious" and not "to die after having spent several days in a vacuum".

Above all, this 57-year-old man wants to alert public opinion to the situation of people at the end of their life in France.

He wishes France to go further on euthanasia by allowing medical assistance in dying, or assisted suicide.

"What I want is for a doctor to put a powerful barbiturate in my hand, swallow it and it's all over," he says.

An option that Emmanuel Macron categorically excluded.

Why has the government refused to move on this issue?

Whether during the presidential election campaign or since he has been at the Elysee Palace, Emmanuel Macron has never really taken a position in favor of active euthanasia.

"And I do not believe that this is on the agenda", assures Alain Claeys, the former deputy (PS) at the origin of the law of 2015.

Anxious not to revive a thorny social debate, the executive rather wants the 2015 law to be already well applied and encourages the French to write their advance directives.

“Because I am not above the law, I am not in a position to accede to your request, the president replied to Alain Cocq in a letter dated Thursday.

Your wish is to request active assistance in dying which is not currently permitted in our country.

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Alain Cocq announced that he would put his project into action this Friday at bedtime.

He will only keep his morphine treatment to avoid suffering.

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• Health

• Video

• Society

• End of life

• Emmanuel Macron

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• Dijon

• Vincent lambert