Costa-Gavras calls for political “courage” to “help people die”

On the occasion of the presentation of his film “Le Dernier Souffle” dedicated to death, the director challenged the public authorities on the question of the end of life and assistance in dying.

The Franco-Greek director Costa-Gavras, 91 years old, demanded on Wednesday September 25 “courage” policy in order to“help” to die “in good conditions” When “the body no longer follows”during the presentation of his film The Last Breath at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Spain.

“States should have the courage – well, politicians – to create, beyond palliative care, places where someone who reaches a point where their life no longer interests them, where the organism, the body no longer follows, memory no longer follows and he no longer has the desire to live, can die, say: ‘Here, I’m going to die, help me to die in (…) good conditions”he declared during a press conference.

With a prestigious cast (Denis Podalydès, Kad Merad, Charlotte Rampling), adapted from a work by Régis Debray and Doctor Claude Grange, The Last Breath relates the philosophical debates on death between a doctor and a writer.

The director of Z, The Confession Or Missingknown for his political commitments, estimated Wednesday that he was “necessary” to legislate on the end of life, “since the population is getting older and older, there are more and more of us.” “No one today would dare go to a hospital and say ‘Help me die’ because he would be kicked out violently“, he lamented. “The main thing is to leave with dignity for yourself and for those who remain”he added.

In France, examination of the long-awaited end-of-life bill, which was to legalize assisted suicide, was interrupted just before the vote a few days before the dissolution last June.

This law was to legalize assisted suicide and, in certain specific cases, euthanasia, by providing important conditions, while refusing to use these terms, preferring to speak of“active assistance in dying”.

But Michel Barnier’s government has a number of opponents of this text, which had already taken more than a year to hatch, first and foremost the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, from the conservative right. Macronist ministers like Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet (Labour) have also expressed their opposition, although the evolution of the law on the subject has long been a promise from President Emmanuel Macron.