Grave charges

French mayor’s grave warning: ‘You’ll be better off not dead’

By Nick Drainey

The mayor of a village in south-west France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.
In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that “all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish”.
It added: “Offenders will be severely punished.”
The mayor, who turned 70 on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term, said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.

New Scotsman