"That's the decision we would make": Alain Duhamel says he could resort to assisted dying himself

"If my wife or I found ourselves in that situation, obviously, for us, that's the decision we would make." Political columnist Alain Duhamel said on BFMTV on Monday, May 12, that he could resort to assisted dying if he found himself in a situation where it seemed necessary, while the National Assembly is examining a bill on the end of life .

"It's an individual decision, it's not about propaganda," he insisted, adding that he would, if necessary, go to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal.

"There is a great inequality in this matter. The people who can afford it are a very small minority," he added, regretting that access to assisted suicide in Switzerland is profoundly unequal, because it is very expensive.

"The freedom to choose the moment of one's death when one is suffering terribly, I think that is truly one of freedoms," he said, asserting that there should be legislation in France that allows those who need it to have access to it as a last resort.

"My brother died in terrible pain," says Alain Duhamel. "I saw one of my brothers, a professor of medicine, two days before his death, who was suffering like hell."

The latter, hospitalized in a clinic, was not receiving the painkillers he needed, according to the political columnist's testimony. "He was given Doliprane in front of me," he recalls.

"You are giving an example of a place where the law is poorly applied," replied Marie de Hennezel, a clinical psychologist, who spoke with him on set.

The psychologist, who opposes the legalization of euthanasia, believes that the Leonetti law is sometimes not properly applied, but points out that it "requires the doctor to provide relief and not abandon the patient."

However, palliative care is not accessible to everyone who needs it. "Half of the French population does not have access to it," estimates Alain Duhamel.