unendurable

"The olden days, when discreet GPs used to bump people off if life got unendurable - unfortunately Dr Shipman changed all that because everything tightened up."

Paola Marra, who had terminal bowel cancer, died on Wednesday at the Swiss clinic - where people with illnesses leading to death, or unendurable pain or disability, can end their life.

Dignitas arranges accompanied suicide for people who have an illness leading "inevitably to death, unendurable pain or an unendurable disability", and want to voluntarily end their life.

What became unendurable was the coup pulled by Ms Le Pen as the vote in the National Assembly approached on Tuesday afternoon.

Dignitas is a not-for-profit Swiss organisation that provides physician-assisted dying to members who, in its words, have illnesses "that will lead inevitably to death, unendurable pain or an unendurable disability" and who have made a "reasoned request" with medical proof.