The Local France

French ex-president Giscard laid to rest in low-key ceremony

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 17:03:02 +0100

France's former president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, credited with leading social and technological reform of the country and placing it at the heart of Europe, was laid to rest Saturday in a low-key funeral attended only by family and his close circle.

France: Final farewell for Chirac in family's home village

Sun, 06 Oct 2019 12:02:54 +0200

Former French President Jacques Chirac's family bade him a final farewell Saturday at an intimate ceremony in the southwestern village where he grew up.

French crook fakes his funeral to escape cops

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:22:12 +0200

A wanted French criminal crafted a detailed plan to fake his own death, but there was just one problem: the police turned up at his 'funeral'.

Woman 'carries mother's body in sports bag'

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 11:38:00 +0200

Staff at a funeral parlour in the city of Reims, north east France, made a grisly discovery this week when a woman tried to hand over a sports bag containing her mother’s corpse.

French woman misses her own funeral

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:19:00 +0100

"You'll be late for your own funeral" is an oft used phrase and sadly for one French family it rang true when undertakers failed to deliver their mother in time for her own service. Her distraught family were forced to hold the ceremony without her.

Wrong woman cremated in mortuary mix-up

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:47:00 +0200

An inquiry has been opened after confusion in a hospital mortuary led to the wrong woman being cremated.