Motorcyclist Jean-Michel Baron died Thursday at the age of 56, after 24 years spent in a vegetative state following a crash on the Dakar Rally.

Baron was 31 when he fell heavily during his second Paris-Dakar, after which he spent several months in hospital before being taken home, where he lived for 23 years "in a vegetative state", his wife Jocelyne told AFP.

"Motorbikes were his life," she said of Baron, the French 250 Inter motorcross champion in 1980 who finished 20th riding a Honda in his first Paris-Dakar in 1985.