Suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and in a wheelchair, Senator Gilbert Boucher shakes up the chamber with his speech

Senator Gilbert Bouchet was keen to defend his bill before the Senate. A text for better care of neurodegenerative diseases. Screenshot-Sénat.fr

The senator from Drôme in office since September 2014, Gilbert Bouchet, suffering from Charcot's disease, moved his colleagues during his speech in the chamber on Tuesday, October 15, aimed at improving care for affected patients.

In a wheelchair and very weak physically, the senator (Les Républicains) of Drôme suffering from the terrible Charcot's disease insisted on being present before the Senate to defend his text. A moving moment where he thanked his colleagues for having adopted his text pleading for better care for patients affected by the same disease as him. “It makes me happy that there are signatures from everyone […]. More and more, we are talking about this disease. But we absolutely need more resources, more communication, because it is a disease that can affect anyone,”, declares the elected member of the Senate.

His moving testimony sparked a surge of emotion and loud applause in the ranks of the upper house, where all political groups unanimously spoke with one voice to salute the courage of their colleague.

A disease that causes more than 1,000 new patients each year

Charcot's disease, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is a neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells responsible for controlling voluntary muscles, condemning patients affected to progressive paralysis that affects the entire body and leads to death within a few years: two to five years on average. This degenerative and irreversible disease affects 6,000 to 7,000 people in France.

Each year in France, more than 1,000 people are affected by this neurodegenerative disease, most often aged 40 to 70, according to the Belharra Association. Men are still more likely to be affected than women. Let us hope that after having the text adopted by the Senate, the National Assembly will do the same, thus allowing legislation on people with disabilities to evolve.