Dijon (AFP)

The activist of the end of life "worthy", Alain Cocq, suffering from an incurable disease, announced, on the night of Friday to Saturday on Facebook, to have ceased his treatment, all food and hydration, thus letting himself die live in order to denounce the "agony" constrained by the current law on the end of life.

"The road to deliverance begins and, believe me, I am happy," said Alain Cocq on his Facebook account shortly after midnight, announcing that he had "finished his last meal" and ceased all hydration and all treatment.

"I know that the days ahead are going to be difficult but I have made my decision and I am calm," he added.

"It is not a suicide", specifies the patient, recalling that he is Catholic.

"I am in the situation provided for by law where a patient can stop his treatment," he explains, saying that, in these cases, death follows "within two to five or even seven days".

"Me, with my condition, it may be fast."

"It will be very hard but it will not be too much compared to everything I have experienced", continues Alain Cocq from the medical bed installed at his home and which he can no longer leave.

Handing a plastic cup to the camera, he then utters a final word: "There you go, friends, I'll have one last drink to your health", before concluding his very poignant message with a "So is life. Goodbye. ".

Alain Cocq had shortly before suffered a refusal from President Emmanuel Macron to help him die by authorizing an assisted suicide.

"Your wish is to seek active assistance in dying which is not currently permitted in our country", wrote Mr. Macron in response to Alain Cocq's request to authorize a doctor to prescribe a barbiturate for him, "on a compassionate basis", so that he can "leave in peace".

The Claeys-Léonetti law on the end of life, adopted in 2016, authorizes deep sedation but only for people whose vital prognosis is engaged "in the short term".

But Mr. Cocq, even if he says he is "in the final phase for 34 years" because of a very painful degenerative disease, can not prove that his end of life is approaching in the short term.

The death activist "with dignity", who has made several tours of Europe in a wheelchair to plead his case, has therefore carried out his decision to "say stop", as he recently explained to the AFP.

“Little by little, all the vital organs are going to be affected. If it's to look at the ceiling like an ass and wait for it to happen, no,” said Mr. Cocq, 57.

- Train "awareness" -

In order to "show the French what the agony required by the Leonetti law is", Alain Cocq will broadcast his end of life on waking up on Saturday morning, "live on (his) Facebook page".

At the entrance of his modest apartment in the underprivileged district of Grésilles, in Dijon, Alain posted his "certificate of refusal of care" by which he prohibited any resuscitation.

"Alain has already been revived nine times", explains Sophie Medjeberg, vice president of the "Handi mais pas que" association.

"And each time with a new degeneration. He is locked in his body", adds Ms. Medjeberg, whom Alain Cocq has taken as his representative so that "the fight continues".

"Alain passes the baton", she assures, saying that she hopes that the death he has foreseen live will cause an "electroshock", "in order to authorize assisted suicide as in Belgium or Switzerland".

"Eight out of ten French people are in favor of assisted suicide," added Ms. Medjeberg.

The case of Alain Cocq revives the controversy on the end of life, like the case of Vincent Lambert, a nurse in a vegetative state who died in July 2019 after a deep sedation desired by his wife and his nephew François, but at which his parents objected to.

This "shows that the Leonetti law is an inhuman law," his nephew François Lambert told AFP.

Mr. Lambert said he hoped that the images of Alain Cocq's death will raise "awareness".

© 2020 AFP