A terminally ill Frenchman wants to live stream his hunger strike and eventual death, but Facebook does not allow this. 57-year-old Alain Cocq is disappointed with the platform; his action was intended to protest against the ban on euthanasia in France.
Streaming a suicide is against Facebook’s rules, the company says in a response to AFP news agency. But Cocq considers the decision to be an infringement of freedom of expression. He calls on his 23,000 followers to pressure Facebook.
Brief van president Macron
The terminally ill man refuses to eat, drink or take medication until the law is amended. He had personally requested President Macron to be allowed to perform euthanasia. “Because I am not above the law, I cannot comply with your request,” was his response in a letter. Cocq then decided to go on a hunger strike.
Cocq has been suffering from a rare condition for 34 years that causes the walls of his blood vessels to stick together. He says he is in constant pain. Until Friday he received tube feeding. “The road to salvation begins, and believe me, I am happy,” he said in a Facebook video that night from his hospital bed in the city of Dijon.
Unbearable suffering
In contrast to the Netherlands and Belgium, voluntary termination of life in case of hopeless suffering is not legally permitted in France. Opponents of euthanasia, such as the Catholic Church, have moral objections.
A 2016 law states that only so-called palliative sedation is allowed in France. That means that a dying person is put to sleep and is sedated, but still lives. Cocq wants the law to be expanded so that suicide in unbearable suffering is also possible.
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