What to do after a death in France

While this guide focuses mainly on practical matters, coping with a loved-one's death is often very difficult emotionally. If you need extra support you can find English-speaking counsellors and psychotherapists via this website.

Timeline of tasks

French government information website service-public.gouv.fr has a simple website for checking key things to do after a death depending on your personal situation.

Within 24 hours

• Obtain a medical certificate (un constat de décès) from a doctor certifying the death. Violent deaths, including road accidents, must be notified to the police or gendarmerie, who will supply a certificate; in which case the body may be transferred to a special mortuary where an autopsy may be conducted before it is transferred to a usual mortuary after judicial permission.

Apart from the basic proof of death, the medical certificate will also contain information that is important for admission to a private or municipal mortuary; transport of the body before the coffin is sealed and transport abroad after sealing; embalming or cremation.

In such cases, the certificate must show that there are no medical/legal issues of concern, that the person did not have a contagious illness and, if they are to be cremated, that they did not have a pacemaker – or if they did, that it has been removed, as these can explode.

• Declare the death to the mairie of the area where it occurred. This can be done by the funeral directors or a care home or medical establishment if the death happened there. It must be done within 24 hours (not counting weekends and bank holidays). Some mairies have limited opening hours and you may need to call the mayor directly.

If you do this yourself you will need personal ID, the constat de décès, plus ID for the deceased such as a marriage, birth certificate or passport. This is the same for anyone else who is charged with declaring the death. You will then be given a death certificate acte de décès – and we advise getting at least a dozen copies.

• Wherever the death takes place, the close family can ask for the body to be transferred for example, from a hospital or retirement home, before the placing in the coffin – whether to their home, a relative’s home or to a chambre funéraire. The latter is a private or municipal mortuary, often run by funeral directors and which costs more than using a hospital mortuary. This requires authorisation from the local mairie and usually must take place within 24 hours, or 48 hours if there has been embalming. 

If the body is to be transferred to a different commune, authorisation from that commune’s mairie is required. In the case of transfer from an institution, transfer also requires permission from the home director or the doctor in charge.

Organising a funeral

Contact your chosen firm of funeral directors (pompes funèbres) within about 48 hours of the death and instruct them of your wishes.

They will help with subsequent formalities and arranging the obsèques (funeral). A list of firms can be found at the mairie. You should check if the deceased had expressed a choice of cremation or burial.

Before signing anything make sure the quote includes all charges and labour. The average cost of a funeral is around €4,300 for a funeral with burial and €3,800 for one with cremation, a study by a professional body for the sector, CPFM, found.

However the organisation said prices vary widely, and can be twice as much in Paris or the Riveria compared to Hauts-de-France. 

You may wish to obtain quotes from several firms. Vocabulary may include: a fully-equipped oak coffin for burial in a cemetery (cercueil en chêne équipé). Equipped means with inner lining, handles, plaque, screws etc;

a coffin equipped for cremation (cercueil équipé destiné à la crémation);or equipped and zinc-coated (zingué et équipé) for shipment abroad;a hearse (corbillard) and pallbearers (porteurs de cercueil).

The tasks of the funeral director may include: cleaning and dressing the body (if not already carried out at hospital), looking after it in their chambre funéraire, embalming, providing a coffin and accessories (or an urn), organising the cortège (hearse and bearers), a civil or religious ceremony (with or without a maître de cérémonie in charge), fees for the burial plot, grave digging, funeral monument or for storage of an urn.

There may be extra fees for the firm’s help with general organisation, printing cards and for a notice in the paper.

A funeral must take place within six days unless there are special circumstances and permission.

The placing in the coffin (mise en bière) usually happens at the place where the person died. 

Wherever a death takes place, no one can impose removal of the body to the deceased’s home or to a chambre funéraire without permission from the family. 

The only exception is where a care home is unable to contact a family member within 10 hours after the death. In such a case it can arrange a transfer, at the establishment’s cost.

A body can stay in a private home or retirement home for up to six days. In a case such as a death in a road accident, where the body has been sent to a chambre funéraire without the family requesting it, the family is not obliged to use any funeral directors services offered by the private chamber – the right to choose independently remains.

Repatriation of a body to the UK

Repatriation of a body to the UK costs at least €5,000 before funeral costs.

If you are a second home owner and the death occurs in France it may be that your travel insurance will cover the cost and arrange the procedure.

Policies on your credit cards may possibly also help.

In terms of cost and bureaucracy it is far easier to have ashes brought back to the UK, or other home country, than a body.

In the case of a body, the funeral directors will undertake the formalities. The British consular service may also be able to guide you (a list of UK ‘international’ funeral directors can also be found on this website). 

The body will have to be embalmed and the funeral directors will obtain a laissez-passer for the coffin from the prefecture where death occurred.

They need the death certificate, a doctor's certificate that the body has no contagious diseases, and authorisation for closure of the coffin from the mairie. Some prefectures may also ask for a certificate from the police that they were present at the closure.

They will also need the deceased’s passport, birth certificate and/or marriage certificate.

Funeral directors in the UK and France should liaise. It is not advisable to organize a date for the funeral in the UK before authorities have finished their procedures.

If the death occurred in straightforward circumstances an inquest will not be needed in the UK and, if appropriate, a cremation order can be obtained from the Home Office (usually by the UK undertaker); there is no equivalent order for burials.

If the death occurred in other circumstances (violent or unnatural, no identified cause etc.), then a coroner will hold an inquest and – because French death certificates do not state the cause of death – may order a post mortem examination, even if an autopsy was performed in France.

It is legal to post ashes but it is recommended to use a private courier with delivery receipts. Make sure the ashes are in a solid, well-sealed container. Do not mark the contents on the package but write ‘fragile’ on it.

If you will be flying back, contact the airline and UK customs to check procedures which may vary. If you are taking ashes as hand luggage use a non-metallic container provided by the crematorium which can be scanned by security.

Some airlines say if you are taking it in the cabin it should not be recognisable as an urn. Others may ask you to place ashes in the hold, in which case you will need a metal container.

You need a certificate from the crematorium and a copy of the death certificate as well as permission from the prefecture to take the ashes abroad. This is the same if you are transporting ashes by land or sea.

Useful vocabulary for speaking about death in France

La mort (silent ‘t’) – death

Le décès – death (more formal)

Le deuil – mourning

Mourir, décéder – to die

Il est mort (‘t’ silent), elle est morte (‘t’ pronounced) – he/she is dead

Il est décédé, elle est décédée – deceased (not to be mistaken with décider – to decide)

Le défunt, la défunte – the deceased

Un enterrement – burial

Les obsèques (feminine) – funeral

La crémation – cremation

Etre enterré/e – to be buried

Etre incinéré/e – to be cremated

Les pompes funèbres – undertakers

Une tombe, une sépulture – a tomb

Un cimetière – cemetery

Un cercueil – a coffin

Une couronne mortuaire – wreath

Un convoi funéraire – a funeral convoy

Un corbillard – a hearse

Une urne – urn for ashes

Le corps – the body

Les cendres (feminine) – the ashes

Une chambre mortuaire – chapel of rest

Une veillée mortuaire – a wake

Un maître de cérémonie – (funeral) celebrant

Un crématorium – crematorium

Laïc – non-religious

Un faire-part de décès – death notice

Un monument funéraire – funeral monument

Un caveau – a vault

Feu (example: feu votre femme): '(the) late'.

Invariable adjective (so no feminine or plural form), used in expressions such as: j’ai bien connu feu votre tante – I knew your late aunt very well.

The vocabulary in this column supplied by Camille Chevalier-Karfis of French Today.

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