Sorry about the heading but I don’t really know how to label this. I recently enquired about the costs of coffins/cremation and burial and was horrified. Where I live, the most modest cremation costs €700. I’m sure everybody knows that here in France, unless you specify, organ donation is automatic in hospitals. In that case, the family receive the remains and all the costs of a normal cremation or burial ensue. However, if you are so minded, you can donate your whole body to science via your local medical school who cover all costs. Body donation to science: How to proceed in France? | Advitam
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Good to flag up this ‘option’. We have signed all the necessary contents to donate our bodies, when we die, to the nearest surgical school, (at the Rouen university hospital). However they say that they expect donors to meet the costs of transporting bodies to the school if more than (I recall) 25km away. Living slightly further away, we will - when the time comes, - need to think about the practicalities of how to actually make this happen.
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This link gives the actual wording that can be used should the establishlent not provide their own : Don du corps à la science, comment faire ? Les démarches nécessaires
Are you saying that €700 is excessive? About five years ago I signed a cheque for my sisters simple cremation in the U.K. and that was £3367.
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In her younger days, my aunt had arranged for her body to be “donated” to medical science… but when she finally died at age 99, medical science didn’t want her body, they didn’t want nuffink.
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If my cremation is only going to cost 700€, I’m having my wake before I go.
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In the early 1990s a friend’s grandmother fell and broke her femur. She was taken to hospital and was operated on although the doctors didn’t expect her to survive the ordeal. She did and lived for another nine years. Afterwards she explained that the worst bit about the whole thing was the attention she got from just about anybody with any medical training in the place. It turns out she had broken the same bone before, in 1908, and the big attraction was the silver splint that had been used to repair the bone back then.
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I had no idea of the cost here or there but when you think all they use is combustible fuel £3000 + sounds crackers. Maybe it included seating and a ceremony?
We will coming across to France to be cremated!
I should point out that the €700 I mentioned is just for the cremation itself - with all the paraphernalia, ceremony and transport etc, it’s around €4,000.
My late wife’s collection from the hospital where she died, 50 kms away, preparation for viewing and the funeral and a wooden coffin, came to just about € 3,500. All paid directly from her otherwise frozen bank account. The cost of the double plot in the cemetary was paid by me up front and came to about €225 to the Mairie, in perpetuity, no more to pay, ever, but that varies from commune to commune. One more thing I was grateful for that we had chosen this one to live in.
I believe cremation would have been more as there would have been an extra 100 km roundtrip for the funeral people, but we weren’t interested in that as we had always agreed to be buried side by side near to home in our commune.
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We paid around €1300 for cremation in 2011. That did not include the hire of the village hall which was free to us by the maire nor the cost of the box in the columbarium. There were fees included for the gendarmes to witness the wax seal at the hospital and transport to the PF plus paperwork and newspaper announcements. Mum’s cremation in the UK back in April with basic hearse cost just under £8000
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700€ is pretty cheap compared to the UK.
That said, even French funeral service companies have jumped on the bandwagon of selling funeral ceremony insurance, to cover the costs, irrespective of the choice of disposal. My work office is opposite a training outfit for, among other things, funeral parlors, so I’m in regular discussion with the local head of station about evolutions in that sphere.
That sounds very nice and tidy. From what I have read, it’s very unusual to aquire a plot in perpetuity. Usually it’s some 400 for 2m2 for 30 years, 1000 for 50 years. Both the length and the cost can vary considerably from Commune to Commune. Whatever happens, the length of time can be extended by the family but again, costs vary a lot.
In our cemetery there are some very ancient plots which are “in perpetuity”. Some have fallen into ruin and bear a sign asking “whoever is responsible” to contact the Mairie.
I believe that after a period of time, these forgotten plots might be able to be reissued, maybe not. But nothing is being issued now without an “end date” (around 40 or 80 years I think but it’s all in flux)
If we buried everyone we’d soon run out of space.
the field next door to the Cemetery is earmarked for future “expansion”
In my old commune the cemetary had many little notices posted on graves with same message. Anyway after a certain amount of time and nothing heard from any family/friends etc, those plots were dug up, ,the contents removed and re-interred in one communal burial spot and the tombstones done away with. Basically like paying rent, no payment you get evicted. My payment for the columbarium was €100/10 years and plots in the ground were from 30years upwards.
Isn’t that so very sad. It means nobody even knows who’se buried there.
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Don’t you think we’ll get to a situation where burial is against the law except for ashes. Maybe, one day, we can chose to be strewn way up in the sky? Don’t know how various religions deal with death.