Disappointing a loved one beyond their death. Realizing too late that he would have preferred to be buried rather than go to ashes, that he did not particularly carry in his heart his neighbor in the vault or that the cemetery where you are going to greet him for Toussaint is not really the place he had envisioned for his eternal rest. “It’s quite common,” assures Manon Deschamps, well placed to bear witness to the pain of families when they realize that they have committed an irreparable blunder. At 24, the young girl is a notary clerk, specializing in family law, in a firm in Toulouse. Because death is taboo, because “the trusted person” does not always follow the instructions, he no longer counts the situations where, weeks and more often months after the death, the reading of a will reveals wishes funeral which it is too late to respect.
“Sometimes, this can cause arguments and very often, it makes the mourning heavier,” explains the woman who imagined a relatively simple solution against guilt: “the creation of a national register of funeral wishes”. There already exist in France two files that can be consulted post-mortem. One where you can register (even online since 2017) for refuse organ donations and a central file of last wishes (FCDV), which a notary, or even a relative under certain conditions, consults to find out if the deceased has made his arrangements in a will. But the file imagined by Manon Deschamps would be accessible immediately after the death “obviously for notaries but also and above all by funeral directors, subject to professional secrecy”.
The Minister of Justice in charge of the file
La Toulousaine thinks that notaries could be responsible for recording funeral wishes and their entry in the register, in the same way as for wills. At what price ? “It’s up to the government to decide,” said the young girl. Because his proposal for a central file “to help grieving families” is not a vague idea in the air. This summer, she wrote to the services of the Minister of Health and Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. She was informed by mail that the file had been entrusted to the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti. “I must have written around forty letters since then, I’m waiting for news,” assures Manon Deschamps, who has no intention of getting tired. “It’s relatively simple to set up and it’s a subject that concerns absolutely everyone. We all have loved ones who will leave one day, so if we can anticipate, to avoid adding to the pain of mourning, we must do it,” she asks.
In any case, among his friendly or professional entourage, among the clients of his study, and in the funeral sector, his proposal to no longer be on the sidelines when the tragedy occurs arouses unanimous blessing.