Fabien Roussel talks in a program about the cancer his daughter beat

The national secretary of the Communist Party had never spoken openly about the cancer his daughter Nina suffered at the age of 8, which she later overcame. In an excerpt from the program Une ambition intime, scheduled for Sunday, June 1st, and from which M6 shared an excerpt on social media, Fabien Roussel reflected on what the channel describes as "the most devastating ordeal" of his life.

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In this program, the height of the celebrity culture of political life, he explains to the channel's star presenter Karine Le Marchand that he was called by the hospital on December 31, 2003, as he was preparing to celebrate New Year's: "I didn't realize it because I said, 'Well, listen, okay. It's December 31, we're at a friend's house, we're going to party, and then I'll come on the 2nd .' And then I remember the doctor saying to me, 'Sir, you haven't understood, your daughter has cancer. You have to come home immediately so we can operate urgently .'"

A few days earlier, his daughter had had a lump removed from her throat. Doctors had spotted a tumor in the lymph node. "We were really supportive," recalls Fabien Roussel. He adds: "It worked! When I tell you that life is a struggle, that's it too. She fought. We fought together. She won and she's radiant."

Fabien Roussel's daughter confided to M6: "The older I get, the more I realize how hard it must have been for him to go through all those stages. Knowing that he was a father who raised us partly on his own. I think he's a man with a big heart."

According to the National Cancer Institute, "around 2,300 children and adolescents" are diagnosed each year in France (i.e. 0.6% of cancers at all ages combined) and "the 5-year survival rate now exceeds 80%."