Girl, 11, decorates tombstones in France with unsold flowers

An 11-year-old girl in southern France has brought much-needed colour to her local cemetery by using unsold cut flowers to decorate tombstones.

Victoire, from Saint-Estève (Pyrénées-Orientales, Occitanie), had the idea to save the unsold blooms from a local florist, and instead use them to decorate graves. She hit upon the initiative as part of a school project.

The flowers would have otherwise ended up in the bin.

‘A bubbly young girl with a great idea’

The girl approached a florist in her town, which is a few minutes away from the city of Perpignan, and the idea spread.

"Victoire came to us spontaneously with her mum,” said the florist at À la Botte in Saint-Estève, to Actu Perpignan. “She's a bubbly young girl and had a great idea.”

The florist said that she “immediately accepted" the offer, and saw it as “a truly generous and eco-friendly citizen initiative”.

"We gave her several buckets, with different flowers that were at the end of their life, and that we were going to throw away,” the florist said. Victoire and her dad then “put flowers on many of the graves”, said the local authority, and the “pathways in the cemetery have been given a new lease of life”.

The kind-hearted idea appears to have brightened people’s day, with the town’s Facebook post about Victoire's story having prompted 50,000 positive reactions, including 40,000 ‘likes’, and almost 6,000 comments and shares.

Users praised the girl for her “goodness”, “generosity” and “kind heart”, and also said thank you to the florist for their quick cooperation.

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