Alain Cocq: “There will be no junk images. You will only see how I turn off "

When he picks up the phone to answer EL PAÍS from his apartment in Dijon, Alain Cocq has just six hours left before he stops taking the medicines and foods that keep him precariously alive after suffering, for 34 of his 57 years, a incurable rare disease.

He would have preferred to receive "last care," as he calls it.

A "medical aid" so that his death is quick and less painful.

But French law does not allow it.

For that to change, he has decided to broadcast his death on Facebook.

And tell, until his last breath, his fight.

Therefore, his voice does not tremble.

And he attends, with patience, to all the journalists he can before his strength fails him.

Conveying his message is his last fight in a battle for the right to a dignified death that will continue when he is no longer there to tell it, but in which he hopes to provoke, with his gesture, a decisive change.

Question.

Why have you decided to let yourself die?

Reply.

I am blocked, confined in life.

My body is confined to a bed, which is locked in my apartment room.

The simple act of moving is torture.

In the natural order of things, he should have died a long time ago.

If a State inflicted on a prisoner of war the sufferings that I suffer, he would be condemned by the International Criminal Court for torture and acts of barbarism.

We talk about that level of pain.

More information

• An incurable patient will be allowed to die live to claim the right to a dignified death in France

Q.

What do you ask for?

R.

I only ask one thing, that we have the right to last care.

what do I want to say with that?

Benefiting from an ultimate care that frees us from suffering is not suicide, the objective is not to end a life but to relieve a patient, and unfortunately it can have the effect in some cases of death, but the objective is not death.

The goal is to relieve excruciating pain.

Q.

How are the next days going to go by?

A.

There will be no garbage images, this is not for peepers.

The camera will be positioned above my head and perhaps at torso level, but no more.

When they have to do me some care, the camera will be rotated.

The images will only be broadcast from the moment I wake up until sunset.

I don't want junk images.

They will be harsh images, but according to my personal modesty.

You will only see how I turn off.

Q.

What do you hope to achieve?

R.

It will cause an awareness.

It is going to make things move, because many people in France have understood that the Leonetti law [that allows deep sedation in terminal patients] is a three-legged table and that it is not stable, the fourth leg is missing, that of the last cares.

Relieving patients of all suffering is ultimate care, not suicide.

I have decided to just turn off.

It is not a suicide.

Suicide is violent, mine is not going to be violent.

I am a citizen who has decided that he did not want to suffer anymore and that is why he has decided to turn off.

The most important moments in life are birth, where one cannot do anything, it is the parents who program it, and death.

The problem is that, at the moment, in many countries people die in theocracy, not in democracy.

I fight for the right to choose the moment of my death.

And that once that moment arrives, each citizen, depending on their perception of life, their faith, or their non-faith, can decide if they want to continue or not.

May you have the freedom to choose.

Because that is the basis of democracy, the right of citizens to choose freely.

The conversation is interrupted by another call.

"It was someone from abroad to wish me to leave in peace," he explains.

“I receive messages from everywhere, this affects all countries.

On my page, they wish me a safe journey.

How do you say that in Spanish?