Strangers to get €280,000 legacy

A WOMAN has left all her €280,000 fortune to about 200 people she met by chance through life.

Jeannine Vromant, from Dieppe, Seine-Maritime, died in 2008 at the age of 86 and, having no family and having never married, decided to give pleasure to strangers who had helped her.

Nurses, clerks and nearly 50 employees from Dieppe bus firm Stradibus found themselves on a list of names who were contacted by her lawyer to be told of the impending bounty.

Notaire Francis Bécu said Mme Vromant could not drive and the bus drivers stopped outside her house to make her life easier as she was disabled.

It took a year to identify 120 people on the list, some of whom had been identified only by a Christian name or their job title, and Mr Bécu said they were sending each cheques for €1200, the bequest minus expenses.