Alain Cocq -
PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP
Aged 57, Alain Cocq suffers from an orphan disease so rare that it does not bear a name.
He constantly rates himself at 8 out of 10 on the suffering scale.
In September 2020, he threatened to let himself die live on Facebook if Emmanuel Macron did not change the law to allow assisted suicide, but had to give up his project along the way.
Today, he decided to travel to Switzerland to benefit from an assisted suicide.
In Dijon (Côte d'Or),
He was the first to pick up his phone.
He had learned that we were interested in his story and wanted to invite us to his home in Dijon.
The next day, he called back to find out if we had bought our train ticket.
The next day, it was to give his address.
And the next one to check that we had noted the name of the street allowing easier access to the back of his medical apartment.
"Alright, I'll wait for you then."
I take care of preparing the coffee.
"
Obviously, when we arrived on this snowy day in January, it was not Alain Cocq who boiled the pot.
But one of the six carers who take turns at his bedside every day.
To one, he claims "the black medical file".
To the other, "the computer".
And between the two, "a cup of coffee".
Shirtless, lying in bed, cigarette on his lips, this 57-year-old man distributes orders without particular affection.
But this should not be seen as a lack of respect.
It is simply his way of leading "the fight", as he calls it.
Him in the front line.
And his caregivers as reinforcements.
"I shoot the flower with a gun.
But the rifle to the shoulder… ”, he also sums up with a pretty warlike image.
Because, yes, Alain Cocq is going to die.
He wants to die.
After an aborted first attempt in France in September, he finally decided to start the process to benefit from an assisted suicide in Bern (Switzerland).
In the next weeks.
Or the next few months, maybe.
Everything is tied up.
He simply waits for the date to be communicated to him to begin his last trip.
And he wants the French to be informed of his project.
"I want the end of life to become the major theme of the 2022 presidential campaign," he assumes.
The ultimatum to Macron did not work
Heavily disabled, affected by a disease so orphaned that it does not even bear a name, he has already tried, in September 2020, to bend Emmanuel Macron on the issue of active euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The ultimatum was as simple as it was brutal: if the head of state does not change the law, he had promised to let himself die of hunger and thirst and to broadcast his agony on Facebook.
Despite "deep respect", Emmanuel Macron replied that he was not "able to comply with [his] request".
Facebook cut the live broadcast.
And, after a few days of excruciating suffering, Alain Cocq finally refueled and rehydrated at the hospital before returning home to Dijon.
In his bed, then.
In a small bedroom adjoining the kitchen.
To his left, a painting with geometric shapes “found in a trash can”.
And a photo symbolizing "the reunion of two strangers".
Opposite, a giant screen which descends from the ceiling and on which he watches the news continuously.
Behind him, "Sara the black", the patron saint of the gypsies.
"She's watching over me," he smiles.
But lately I'm tired.
I can't wait to leave… ”
Our file on end of life
"My pain scale goes up to 12 ..."
It hasn't always been that way.
Sick for 34 years, the former plumber has long used his body to advance the cause of people with disabilities.
In 1993, he embarked on a wheelchair trip to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin).
The following year, he undertook a Tour de France.
Then from Europe.
Before several heart and stroke accidents really immobilized him.
Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), June 17, 1998. Alain Cocq arrives at the Council of Europe after a wheelchair trip of more than 2,000 kilometers.
- DAMIEN MEYER / AFP
"Today, I am permanently 8 out of 10 pain," he says, showing the patch of morphine stuck to his chest.
My personal scale goes up to 12. But I still suffer.
It's hard to explain how… Alain Cocq suffers from a form of ischemia.
The walls of its arteries stick to each other.
"Every two or three seconds, electric shocks run through my body ..."
“His situation is terrible,” says one of his relatives.
But when he saw that all the media started talking about him, he felt intoxicated and hesitated to launch his assisted suicide project in Switzerland.
It's normal to hesitate… ”Today, doubt is no longer on the agenda.
“The file has been put together,” informs Sophie Medjeberg, the agent he has chosen to assist him in the process.
We have a psychologist report which assures him that he has his head.
The project is funded.
We are just waiting for the date to go to Switzerland.
"
Ashes in an urn in a coffin
Bedridden patiently, Alain Cocq does not spend his days doing nothing.
While lighting a new cigarette, he evokes pell-mell the subjects on which he is currently "working": a procedure for an act of torture before the International Criminal Court, the "joke" of the Claeys-Léonetti law on the end of life and his VPN access which allows him to help others on the Internet without being spied on by the authorities.
Asked about this strange activism, he does not want to say more.
“But to do what I do, you need a certain amount of intellectual ability.
If I had wanted to use them for myself, I would have a six-figure bank account today… ”Now he's more interested in politics and fighting for the weak.
Lucid behind his rectangular glasses, he thus invokes the figure of Jean Jaurès, those of “yellow vests” and, more surprisingly, evokes the Pope's message.
"In his encyclical, he explains well that one must not suffer to redeem one's sins before dying…"
A way to add your face to the gallery of portraits of Vincent Lambert, Chantal Sébire or Vincent Humbert who, before him, have become the symbols of the mobilization in favor of active euthanasia.
All that remains is to convince the political leaders who wish to run for the next presidential election.
“Emmanuel Macron obviously disappointed me.
But it's still better than Le Pen… ”he assures us.
Alain Cocq knows it well: now is the time to talk politics.
On the evening of the first round of the election, he hopes to be no longer able to vote.
This would be proof that his "project" has been completed.
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