Patrick Eutrope, a former employee of EDF, France’s main electricity supplier, was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 after 40 years working on electrical networks. At his home in Monteux (Vaucluse), January 8, 2026. MATHIEU ASSELIN FOR LE MONDE
“My father was a giant of a man, I thought he was indestructible. I could never have imagined he would be gone in three months, in such agony, and that there would be nothing we could do to save him.” Before talking about his own illness, Alain Barraud first wanted to recount the one that took his father’s life in 1988. His father was a fruit grower in the town of Caumont in southern France. At 67, doctors discovered he had a glioblastoma, a devastating form of brain cancer. Even then, one doctor suspected that the pesticides he sprayed bare-armed in his orchards were to blame.
Alain worked with his father, so he took over the family farm without giving it much thought, “out of habit,” he said. “I was in denial, like many of my colleagues. I couldn’t imagine that anything could happen to me.” And besides, he thought, the products have changed, the doses are lower and people protect themselves better.
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