Weakened by two cancers, the 78-year-old singer gave her news, after being crowned by the magazine “Rolling Stone” best French artist.
Par Marc Fourny
© BALTEL/SIPA / SIPA
Published on
FRançoise Hardy is “not well”. She said it herself in an interview with RTL, which contacted her after noticing that she was on the list of Rolling Stone as the best French singer of all time. A ray of sunshine in a daily life that turns to Calvary. “The 45 radiotherapies that were sent to me from left to right from the bottom of the head and the other 10 from top to bottom destroyed what allows me to irrigate the mouth, the throat, the nose, the ears, eyes and scalp. I leave you to imagine the incurable problems that this poses. »
The singer has been fighting the disease for years, chaining increasingly heavy treatments. First a cancer of the lymphatic system, then a tumor in the pharynx which greatly weakened her, with multiple and painful side effects: a fragile throat, partial deafness, burned salivary glands, general dryness, nasal bleeding, respiratory distress and low morale. Her daily life is punctuated by the ballet of doctors, nurses and toilet assistants, knowing that she takes several hours to manage to eat. She no longer goes out, watches films, receives friends, communicates by email and is sorry not to have attended the recent joint tour of her son Thomas and his former companion Jacques Dutronc.
READ ALSOFrançoise Hardy: “It’s been quite a while since nostalgia has been with me…”
Thomas Dutronc, his son, his pride, his anchor and his reason for living… Last November, he told the Pure Charts site about the nightmare experienced by his mother. “She really has a lot of problems,” he explained. Each trick takes on incredible proportions. […] What is terrible is that she has a very strong, appalling discomfort in life. But she’s not in danger of dying at all, she can live for years like that, but she’s in no spirits at all and she can’t manage it. I insist, but I would like her to take antidepressants, to get help. »
Shorten the suffering
The singer, morally and physically exhausted, has never hidden wanting to end it by resorting to euthanasia one day. “From a certain moment when there is far too much suffering and where there is no hope, the suffering must be ended. It’s the least you can do, it’s human ”, she confided on RTL in the spring of 2021, calling on the authorities to change the law. But she is aware that finding a practitioner to help her take the last step will not be easy, given her notoriety.
READ ALSOFrançoise Hardy: all the melancholy
The one who has definitely drawn a line under her career, in any case, savors the tribute that the magazine pays her today. Rolling Stone, who ranked her the only Frenchwoman among the 200 best artists in history. “It is all the same abnormal that much better singers than me, like Edith Piaf who composed “La vie en rose”, do not appear there, commented the artist on RTL. It’s quite incomprehensible, but very flattering. I won’t resist the temptation to brag about it – just kidding…”