Former sports journalist Charles Biétry, suffering from Charcot’s disease, says he prepared his assisted suicide in Switzerland

“I don’t want to suffer and especially to make my family suffer.” Suffering from Charcot’s disease, an incurable disease, former sports journalist Charles Biétry, 79, says he organized his assisted suicide in Switzerland, in an interview with the newspaper The Team (paid item) posted Friday, April 7. “We organized everything with my wife and my children. I don’t want to be plugged into a breathing machine when there is nothing left, no future (…) I registered in Switzerland to assisted suicide, all the papers are signed”he says.

“Over there, in Switzerland, you have to take the last pill yourself (..) When they hand you the pill and tell you that two minutes later, you’ll be dead, it’s not that simple. But in all case, everything is ready”he testifies, a few days after Emmanuel Macron announced a bill on the end of life “by the end of summer”.

“When it’s not going anymore, I want to stop”

In this long interview, Charles Biétry recounts the progression of his disease, which is characterized by a progressive paralysis of the muscles, and which “took a long time to catch the eye”. The former journalist is ahas had Charcot’s disease for five and a half years, but was only diagnosed last summer.

“The stages, I know them: lower limb, upper limb, throat and larynx… I’m there”he says. “Then you move on to the first category neck stages with the difficulty, even the impossibility, of swallowing (…) The next stage is the attack of the lungs. (…) When it doesn’t work anymore, I want to stop”.