Le Figaro Marseille
It’s a case that continues to generate ink in Marseille. Last Monday, April 8, five gravediggers employed by the municipal funeral directors were summoned to a disciplinary council, suspected of
“particularly serious dysfunctions”
occurring within the city's funeral service.
Between the lines, these municipal agents are accused by their hierarchy of serious acts of
"unconfirmed packaging of the deceased"
, but also for some of
"violation of graves"
,
"theft of gold teeth"
and
"resale of metal parts »
.
“Unacceptable”
facts
which had already cost them a provisional suspension, two bodies of the deceased having never been found by the funeral services and were therefore not returned to the families concerned.
At the end of this council, which had provoked strong mobilization on the part of the trade union organizations, four automatic retirements and a two-year suspension were pronounced against the gravediggers. The decision to sanction them now rests with the mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, who should make a final decision in the coming weeks.
Today, the municipality is hiding behind this media coverage by wanting to make people pay for its dysfunctions and shortcomings.
Marseille Territorial CGT Union
During a press conference given this Friday on the sidelines of the city's municipal council, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) called on Benoît Payan not to follow the advice of the disciplinary council and to assign agents in other services to finish their career there.
“This disciplinary council should have been postponed to allow for more elements in order to make informed and fair decisions
,” indicated the CGT of Territorial Marseille, specifying that the agents suspected of “
unconfirmed conditioning of the deceased”
n were not assigned to the ossuary concerned at the time of the events.
“We ask the mayor not to follow the advice of the disciplinary council, the agents have our full support
,” she continued, before criticizing a decision which
“casts shame”
on the gravediggers.
“Today, the municipality is hiding behind this media coverage by wanting to make people pay for its dysfunctions and failings. The municipality has no qualms about falsely accusing five agents, the oldest of whom has 39 years of service
,” she was offended.
Scandals in Marseille cemeteries
These
“dysfunctions”
and
“failures”
were brought to the attention of the municipality in 2015 by union representatives. Among them, according to the union confederation: non-existent agent training, defective equipment as well as non-compliance with medical and psychological monitoring.
“Over the years, due to lack of controls and lack of resources, bad habits may have set in and become the norm without any director intervening
,” she said, claiming the creation of a working group
“for the improvement of public funeral services”
and to
“meet the needs of all Marseillais”
.
These questions are all the more sulphurous as they bring discredit to the management of municipal funeral services, the source of numerous scandals in recent years. At the beginning of April,
La Provence
revealed that human bones were lying in the open on a vacant lot located near a necropolis in the 11th arrondissement. Facts already denounced in 2018, when construction equipment moved several tons of earth from expired funeral concessions.
Last January, many families also accused the mayor of Marseille, horrified to find that the tomb of their deceased had been desecrated by grave robbers who attacked commemorative plaques and other funeral ornaments. The city had indicated that it took the subject
“very seriously”
, ensuring that it had put in place numerous
“actions”
since 2020 to “carry out
“a profound restructuring of the service”
.