Alain Chamfort delivered to the Monde a moving and subtle account of the consequences of the disease on his body and his state of mind, while he is in remission from cancer.
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In 2015, the singer-songwriter learned that he had bone cancer. While Johnny Hallyday had made public the fact that he also had cancer, the singer of “Manureva” preferred not to reveal anything. “It didn’t do me any good to learn that someone other than me was sick,” he explained later in Leisure TVadding, about the “impact” of his words: “I couldn’t realize that it could have an impact on others.”
Furthermore, he did not “want to attract sympathy.” However, the discreet Alain Chamfort finally realized that his testimony as a patient could help other people and contribute to spreading information about cancer. At the annual gala of the Vaincre le cancer association in 2019, he revealed his condition.
His relationship to death
Today, looking back on his experience, the dandy of French song answers questions from a journalist from Monde on death, illness… and life. The 75-year-old who published the beautiful album in March L’Impermanence admits that he is still suffering the consequences of the disease and the treatment that allowed him to recover. “I have lost flexibility, I no longer want to do things that are a bit risky,” he confides. And, in all honesty, the singer of “Exister” admits: “I am not taking it very well.”
“Weakening is not funny. The illness was a royal entrance into this period of life where you go from one visit to the doctor to another, where it almost becomes a way of life,” explains the man who, trained in Buddhism, nevertheless believes he has “a form of perspective on events.”
Trust
Of his relationship with cancer, the artist evokes the “confidence” he “strangely” had to cope. “Maybe through unconsciousness, I don’t know,” he admits. “The doctor who treated me told me: “It can be cured.” He gave me a percentage of chances of survival. I said to myself: “I’m going to belong to this one.” The desire to believe in life was stronger than the fear of death.”
However, Alain Chamfort confides, “I fear illness, the end of life which can be painful”, more than death, which he describes as a “liberation”, “relief from everything, from suffering, from fears, from anxieties”. But “to contemplate death” is to be alive, says the man who fears “the loss of others” before his own.
This father of four children and partner of a woman has returned to music, with his sixteenth (and last) album L’Impermanenceand a tour with singer Valli, which will begin in October. But he still asks himself the question: “Did we do well? Could we have done better?”
