Claude Sarraute, former journalist for Le Monde and famous columnist for the “Ruquier gang” died on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at the age of 95. In the media, she had become rare in recent years and campaigned for the right to die with dignity.
Laurent Ruquier reacted to the disappearance of Claude Sarraute by speaking on RTL: “She joined me. And it’s been 30 years since it lasted, it lasted. Because for one or two years now, she hasn’t was no longer with us. In the shows, it had become difficult. But we celebrated all his birthdays, all together, in New York, in Cuba … “The presenter of the Big Heads then pauses, overcome by emotion. “I have a lot of trouble because there are a lot of memories that come back. She was a wonderful woman because she was one of the first free women, maybe more feminist than we imagine. She had so much to tell,” he concluded. The radio station will hold a special broadcast to Claude Sarraute this Tuesday afternoon.
The world of television and the media is therefore in mourning. Journalist and novelist Claude Sarraute died on the night of Monday June 19 to Tuesday June 20, her son, Martin Tzara, announced to AFP. At 95, the woman of letters lived in her Parisian apartment and had been discreet for several years. Her most recent appearances date back to 2019, she said a few words on the phone in the Big Heads on RTL. She had then poured out on the health problems that accompanied her with old age and the passage of years. A subject that had inspired a book published the same year by Flammarion editions. With the Parisian, she had estimated that “old age is death row”.
Claude Sarraute had written columns and articles in the columns of Le Monde for thirty-five years when he entered it on January 1, 1953. Philippe Bouvard had integrated her into the program “Les Grosses Têtes” for ten years from 1985. Then, she then became a pillar of the various programs of Laurent Ruquier with “On va s’gêner” in 2000 on Europe 1 and the program “We tried everything” the same year on France 2. She was thus the oldest of the “Ruquier gang”.
The year 2013 was a turning point in the end of the journalist’s career. Old age caught up with her, which led her to reduce her media presence. She made her last appearance on the set of Big Heads in March 2018 before intervening punctually by telephone. The presenter confided, on the back cover of Before you forget everything, that we “meet few characters in a lifetime” like Claude Sarraute.
She lived with major health problems as she confided live to her acolytes in 2019: “I have problems because I can’t hear anymore, I can’t see anymore, I can’t walk anymore. But in my head, that is fine.” She therefore indicated that she no longer wanted to appear in public, because she felt “very old”. She campaigned for the right to die with dignity.
The release of his book Encore un instant, on January 25, 2017, allowed him to present his vision of old age. She then told Le Monde that she had “never been afraid to die” despite her three operations for “breast cancer”. She evoked suicide there to begin her work: “So you decide or not? To what? Well, to kill yourself. Since the time you have been bothering us with this. You, old age, infirmities, the wheelchair , le mortoir, thank you very much. But no thank you! You will have bowed out by then. You have planned everything, organized everything. See you soon ninety brooms, it might be time to think about it.”
In 2017, interviewed by Le Monde, she confided that she had chosen the following epitaph for her grave: “I told you I was sick”.
