When Someone Dies in France

Chapter One. It is one page and it will get you through the night. Everything else can wait until morning. 01C H A P T E R The First Twenty-Four Hours You are reading this because somebody has died, or because somebody is about to, and you are in France, and you do not know what to do. This chapter tells you what must happen, what can wait, and who to telephone. It is written in the order things actually occur, not the order the bureaucracy would prefer. If you are reading this at three in the morning, go to the checklist at the end of this chapter. It is one page and it will get you through the night. Come back to the rest when you can. The first telephone call If the person has died at home, you need a doctor. Not an ambulance, not the police, not a funeral director. A doctor, to come to the house and certify that the death has occurred. In France, a death is not legally a death until a doctor has examined the body and signed a document called the certificat de décès. Nothing else can happen until that piece of paper exists. The body cannot be moved. The mairie cannot be notified. The funeral director cannot act. Everything begins with the doctor. If the person had a médecin traitant, their own regular doctor, telephone that surgery first. During working hours this is usually the fastest route, and a doctor who knew the person and their medical history can complete the certificate without difficulty. Outside working hours, or if the médecin traitant is unavailable, you have two options. SOS Médecins operates in most areas and will send a doctor to the house. The number varies by département but a web search for SOS Médecins followed by the name of your town will find it. Alternatively, telephone 15, which is the SAMU emergency medical line, and explain that someone has died at home and you need a doctor to certify the death. They will send someone or tell you who to call locally. Since April 2025, authorised nurses (infirmiers diplômés d’État) can also certify deaths in France, a change introduced specifically because families in rural areas were sometimes waiting hours for a doctor. In practice, this route is most likely to apply if you call 15 and the régulateur decides to send an available nurse rather than a doctor. The certificate they produce has the same legal standing. The doctor will arrive, examine the person, and complete the certificat de décès. Since June 2022, this is done electronically via an application called CertDc in hospitals and care homes, and the system is now available for home deaths as well, though some doctors in rural areas still use the paper form. The certificate records the date, time and place of death, the cause, and whether the death was natural or requires further investigation. You do not receive this document. The administrative section is transmitted automatically to the mairie and to the funeral director. The medical section, which contains the cause of death, is confidential and goes to the national health statistics body. You will not see it and you do not need to. The doctor’s visit is a medical act and is chargeable. The fee is usually covered by the deceased’s assurance maladie or mutuelle, but it is invoiced and somebody receives the bill. This is not the moment to worry about it, but it is worth knowing it is not free. If the person died in hospital, a clinic, or an EHPAD Then the certificat de décès is handled for you. The doctor on duty or the médecin coordonnateur in the case of an EHPAD will complete and sign it. You do not need to arrange a doctor, and you do not need to be there when it is done. The hospital or care home will telephone you. They will tell you what has happened and they will ask you, usually in the same conversation, whether you have a funeral director in mind. You do not need to answer that question immediately. Say you will confirm and take the time you need. In a hospital, the person will be taken to the chambre mortuaire, the hospital mortuary, and may remain there free of charge for three days, counted from the last invoiced day of hospitalisation (Article R.2223-89, CGCT). After that, the hospital may levy a daily charge, though not all do. The hospital will want them collected by a funeral director, and charges begin to accrue. An EHPAD has no mortuary facility. The home will ask for a funeral director to collect the person, and the expectation is that this happens within hours rather than days. If you are not in France, or not nearby, say so plainly and ask for the maximum time they can wait while you make arrangements. Most will accommodate a day. Some will arrange a temporary transfer to a chambre funéraire themselves if you ask. What you can do before the doctor arrives You may stay with the person. You may sit with them for as long as you wish. You may hold their hand. You may open or close a window. You do not need permission for any of this and nobody will come unless you ask them to. You may not wash the body or change their clothes. No toilette or procedure may be performed before the certificat de décès has been signed. After certification, the toilette mortuaire is carried out by healthcare staff or by the funeral director’s team. Religious requirements for ritual washing are accommodated, but they happen after, not before, the certificate is completed. You may cover the person with a sheet or blanket. You may close their eyes if they are open, and this is easier to do sooner rather than later. You may place their hands together if you wish. If the death was expected, if the person was under palliative care or had been ill for a long time, there is nothing urgent about the next few hours. The doctor must come, but the doctor does not need to come at four in the morning. It is entirely acceptable to wait until a reasonable hour, to sit with the person, to make tea. The 24-hour deadline for the mairie declaration does not start until the death has been certified, not from the moment the person actually died, and weekends and public holidays do not count towards it. The mairie: what must happen within twenty-four hours Once the doctor or nurse has signed the certificat de décès, the death must be declared at the mairie of the commune where the person died. Not the commune where they lived, if different. The commune where they died. This is the déclaration de décès, and it must be made within twenty-four hours of the certification, excluding weekends and public holidays. In practice, if someone dies on a Friday evening, the declaration can wait until Monday. The mairie of the commune will normally have arrangements for urgent cases outside these hours, and the funeral director will know who to contact if needed. You may make the declaration yourself. Any adult may do it. In practice it is very often the funeral director who handles it on the family’s behalf, and this is one of the first useful things they do. If your French is limited, letting the funeral director manage this is sensible and normal. What you need to bring, or what the funeral director will need from you: The certificat de décès, or confirmation that the doctor has transmitted it to the mairie already. The deceased person’s livret de famille, if one exists. The livret de famille is a small booklet issued by the French state, usually at marriage, which records the key events in a family’s life: the marriage itself, the births of children, and eventually deaths. It is the closest thing France has to a single-family record. If the deceased was French, or was married in France, there will almost certainly be one and it will be in the house somewhere. If they were not French and married outside France, they will not have one. This is completely normal and the mairie will proceed without it. Simply explain that you do not hold a livret de famille. You will also need an identity document for the deceased, an identity document for the person making the declaration, and if you have them to hand, the deceased’s birth certificate and marriage certificate, though these can sometimes follow. Where the doctor has used the CertDc electronic system, the mairie may already have the certificat de décès before you arrive. If not, bring whatever the doctor gave you. The mairie will issue the acte de décès. This is the official record of the death, and it is the document you will need for everything that follows. Everything. Banks, notaires, pension funds, insurance companies, the préfecture, the consulate, utility companies. Every single one of them will want a copy, and most will want an original or a certified extract rather than a photocopy. Ask for at least twelve copies. Twenty is not excessive. They are called extraits d’acte de décès and the mairie provides them free of charge, always, without limit. Do not leave with fewer than ten. Coming back for more is possible but it means another trip to the mairie of the commune where the death occurred, which may not be where you live, and it takes time you will not want to spend. Your consulate or embassy You should notify your country’s consulate or embassy in France, and you should do it early, but understand what they will and will not do. Most English-speaking countries’ consulates offer broadly similar services. They will register the death with your home government. They may issue a consular death certificate; a document formatted for use in your home country. They will hold lists of English-speaking professionals, funeral directors and notaires, which they will share on request. For British nationals, the consular death registration costs £150, takes three to six months, and produces a UK- formatted death certificate. Further certified copies cost £50 each. It is optional, not required, and is only worth doing if you expect to need UK-formatted death certificates over the coming years. American, Canadian, Australian, and Irish nationals have equivalent services at their own embassies, with different fees and processing times. Contact your embassy directly for the current details. What no consulate will do: help you navigate the French system, intervene with the mairie, the notaire, or any French institution on your behalf, or translate documents for you. The consulate is useful, it is not essential, and it is not urgent in the first twenty-four hours. Telephoning them on day two or three is perfectly fine. The funeral director: when to call and what to say In France, the funeral director is called the pompes funèbres. You may also see the terms opérateur funéraire or entreprise de pompes funèbres. They are all the same thing. You do not need to have chosen one before the death. You do not need to choose one in the first hour. If the person is at home and the doctor has certified the death, you have time. If they are in hospital, you have the duration of the chambre mortuaire’s free holding period. If they are in an EHPAD, you have less time and should make the call within hours rather than days. An English-speaking funeral director is not a luxury in this situation. It is a practical necessity if your French is not confident enough for the detailed, technical, legally significant conversations that follow. They exist in most areas with a significant expat population. The consulate’s list is a reasonable starting point. Word of mouth from other expats is often better. When you call, they will need to know where the person is, whether the doctor has