Franco-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, father of the New Wave, who died Tuesday at the age of 91, resorted to assisted suicide, confirmed his family advisor.
“Mr. Godard resorted to legal assistance in Switzerland for a voluntary departure after ‘multiple incapacitating pathologies’ according to the terms of the medical report,” explained Patrick Jeanneret, the family’s legal and tax advisor, confirming an information published by the newspaper. Release.
“He wasn’t sick, he was just exhausted,” a relative told the newspaper.
The filmmaker died “peacefully” on Tuesday at his home in the small town of Rolle in Switzerland, his family said in a statement.
There are different forms of assisted death in Switzerland, such as passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The best known is still assisted suicide, a practice that is not specifically regulated but is authorized under certain conditions.
codes of ethics
In principle, whoever, “driven by a selfish motive”, assists someone’s suicide – for example, by supplying him with a deadly substance – is punished with a custodial sentence not exceeding five years or a pecuniary penalty.
However, organizations such as Exit provide assisted suicide within the law as long as “no selfish motive can be attributed to them”.
The practice of assisted suicide is framed in codes of medical ethics and has the support of organizations, mainly Exit, which accompanied nearly 1,400 people to death in 2021.
Assisted suicides have increased annually in recent years in Switzerland, rising from 187 cases per year in 2003 to 965 in 2015, according to the Federal Statistical Office. After a slight decline in 2016, they have since started to rise again.
Source: BFM TV
