For a number of Restricted zone broadcast on March 6 and dedicated to Alzheimer’s disease, Alain Souchon and his son rock will offer their testimony on this disease which had affected the mother of the singer, who died in 2007. Interviewed by TV 7 days on the subject, they agreed to confide.
Madeleine Lemaitre, mother of the immense Alain Souchon, was a colorful character. Indeed at the death of her husband, she had embarked on the writing of rose water novels which allowed her to support her family. Also, when she falls seriously ill, her son Alain and her grandson Pierre are in shock. The latter confided his ignorance of this disease at the time, this February 28 for TV 7 days : “Like everyone else, we had heard of it. Plus it’s a harsh, scary name. Looks like a Third Reich thing. But we really understood what it was when my grandmother was hit.“
Alain Souchon, who has never hidden having a complicated family history, continued by delivering a poignant anecdote: “There was the example of Annie Girardot, wonderful actress and such a charming woman, confirms the interpreter of I am ten years old. Seeing her lose her mind like that broke our hearts. My mom, she didn’t recognize me anymore. She even called me Jacques Chirac! Every time we went to visit him, we left with the blues, with sadness he explained before concluding, it’s like a death before death.“
The interpreter of The Ballad of Jim, married to Francoise, then remembered:We make people live much longer, the body goes further, but often the mind does not follow. So it mixes up a bit with senility. But with Alzheimer’s, there is added wickedness and aggressiveness towards others. I was very touched to see my mother like that. And when I heard him say that it was “the arrival of the Tour de France” in front of his window, me, (…), that didn’t make me laugh.“