Marina Carrère d’Encausse delivers a moving documentary on the end of life

While the Ministry of Health must submit to Emmanuel Macron at the end of September the end-of-life bill requested by the President of the Republic, the doctor and journalist on France Télévisions, Marina Carrère d’Encausse, is delivering a documentary heartbreaking title End of life: so you have a choice and urges the government to legislate. “We have waited long enough, we have postponed long enough. We must propose this text, we must debate it. We must move forward, really”.

“When we say we’re going to talk about death, everyone leaves”

Passing through Belgium, Switzerland and even Canada, Marina Carrère d’Encausse sets out to meet doctors but also families and patients in order to collect their testimonies and understand end-of-life management in their country. “Deep and continuous sedation”, “euthanasia”, “assisted suicide”, “active assistance in dying”: so many words to designate and understand a question as crucial as death. During an interview published on franceinfo social networks, the journalist returns to these terms which may seem a little vague.

“It’s a gesture that is weighed, measured”

By committing to the decriminalization of euthanasia in France, Marina Carrère d’Encausse is committed to ensuring that her husband, like all French people, can choose the moment of his death in the future, while recalling that “euthanasia is an act of care and that it is anything but a trivial act for a doctor”.

Her documentary End of life: so that you have the choice, directed by Magali Cotard will be broadcast on September 26 on France 5. The bill authorizing “active assistance in dying” could be presented a few days earlier, before being examined by the National Assembly at the start of 2024.