“Doctors no longer have anything to offer me”, he said, describing suffering that he compared to that of a patient with terminal cancer. Arnaud Denis was 43 and had a career spanning nearly two decades in French theater when he decided he could no longer go on living like this.
It all began in July 2023, with a simple hernia surgery in Paris. A polypropylene prosthesis was implanted in him and, according to his own account, that was when his ordeal began: chronic pain that no French doctor knew how to treat.
He traveled to the United States in 2024 to have the implant removed, but the damage had already been done. The diagnoses came later: myalgic encephalomyelitis and ASIA syndrome.
In January, he filed a complaint against the manufacturer with the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office. The case was closed in August. A month later, on September 22, 2026, he died by euthanasia in Namur, Belgium.
Hours earlier, he had posted a final message on Facebook quoting Victor Hugo: “To die is nothing, what is painful is not living”. His friend Delphine Depardieu said he passed away almost smiling, relieved.
