This article is the winner of the
European Young Reporters of Hope 2024 prize
, of which Le Figaro is a partner.
A man died in the street this morning.
So like almost every day, deep inside her gray hoodie on one of the first cold mornings of November, Chrystel Estela tries to contact the reference police station.
That of the 13th arrondissement of Paris, this time, in vain.
From the outset, the employee of Les Morts de la Rue prefers to break down prejudices:
“It’s the street that kills, not the seasons, not the cold.
»
The association, whose objective has been to identify and support the homeless in their graves for almost twenty years, counts 611 deaths outside in 2022 –
“all year round continuously”
insists the coordinator.
A figure which would also be far from exhaustive: according to an Inserm study, around six times more homeless people die every year without the collective being able to become aware of it.
Because they die
“hidden”
at a friend’s house, in a hotel, in the hospital.
Months of research
“The relationships we have with the OPJ
[Judicial Police Officers]
vary.
There are those who know us and trust us to share their information, those who even call on us when the investigation drags on, and those who feel that they have nothing to tell us
,” also explains Chrystel Estela.
The most complex files can require months of research before being closed, sometimes without success.
A homeless man camps in front of the offices of the “Morts de la Rue” collective, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.
Pierre Terraz
It is therefore to the cemetery of Thiais (94) that one must go to realize the real dimension of the massacre.
There, in the division of common land, the remains of the dead under X from the Paris region are centralized.
The rows of gray tombs –
“Soviet style”
, quips Chrystel Estela – stretch as far as the eye can see over several hundred meters and in different stages of conservation.
Some are flowering, others left fallow under a pile of branches no longer even bear a plaque.
Among them are the homeless, undocumented, isolated elderly people... but also criminals and unidentified bodies, victims of homicide or suicide.
Also read: These volunteers who fight to bury people who died in the street with dignity
This is the core business of Les Morts de la Rue as well as an unsuspected number of collectives and associations throughout France.
Their motivation?
“It’s a commitment to dignity
,” explains Geneviève Brichet, former municipal councilor in the city of Lyon and founding member of the Mort sans toi(t) group.
The Lyon collective also takes care of the deceased without a fixed address as well as
“all those without family”
.
“Funeral rites have existed since the dawn of time among the first men and even among animals, it is a tradition to which everyone is entitled. There is not a religious motivation in my case but a commitment to equality in death. Why should some people be entitled to 'super rites' because they have money and family, and others to nothing just because they are poor and alone? »
, explains the fifty-year-old from the Rhône.
Chrystel Estela, from Les Morts de la Rue, also remembers:
“Before our appearance, eight coffins were buried one after the other in one day in Thiais, without ceremony and without anyone being allowed to attend the funeral.
Since we existed, this has changed.
»
Flowers and words from local residents are left at the corner of Avenue Hoche, in Paris, in tribute to a homeless person who lived there for more than 20 years.
Pierre Terraz
“To name is to bring into existence”
For the accompanying persons, the two main missions are to find the entourage and to
“personalize”
the burial as much as possible.
Sometimes there are nice surprises.
In Lyon, Geneviève remembers a homeless Austrian:
“The deceased lived on the street in Vienna before dying.
He had been transferred to hospital in France for something serious from which he died here.
We found three of his street friends in Austria, they wanted to travel to bury him and were present.
At the hospital, a caregiver also told us that he talked about dancing tango all the time.
At the funeral, we all played tango together.
»
Also readBehind the scenes of an association that helps find missing people in France
If there is religion, generally secular groups also call on other religious associations to organize the ceremony.
“And if we know nothing at all about the deceased, we read a text which links him to all of humanity
,” explains Chrystel Estela.
Before concluding:
“To name is to make exist, as a philosopher said.
»
This is Sartre.
He is retorted with a phrase often attributed to Camus:
“To misname things is to add to the misfortune of the world.”
»
But death under X cannot be made from overly spiritual considerations.
In the archives of Street Deaths, an endless list reminds us:
“A man, 26 years old, on January 22, 2021 in Hauts de France”
,
“A person in Haute Garonne”
and even
“A baby, 1 month old, March 31, 2021 in Lille
.
Sometimes a first name, a nickname or an approximate age – we die outside at 48 on average – corroborate a liquid identity.
To fill this gap and for
“intuition to become more scientific”
, Les Morts de la Rue publish each year an epidemiological study on the mortality of homeless people, entitled “Number and Describe”.
The report provides information on an invisible although constant phenomenon.
Due to lack of maintenance, several tombs in the Thiais cemetery (94) do not or no longer bear plaques.
Pierre Terraz
Irregularities
If the action of these groups is above all humanist, it also carries a real desire to alert the public;
and therefore a certain political dimension.
Because the rights of the anonymous dead are far from always respected.
According to the law, it is up to the municipality of death to take care of the funeral of a deceased person who died without family or without resources.
Except that in reality,
“there are cities that are reluctant to take care of funerals, since they consider that it is not their role.
Some leave the file lying around in a corner, wait one, two or three months without burying the body until their friends break down... even if it means they go completely into debt or agree to take on a burden. at least part of the costs
,” confesses Chrystel Estela.
In general, either these municipalities are overloaded and are tired of paying, or they are not used to it and don't really know the rule.
“We are here to remind them of their obligations
,” explains the coordinator.
Anyone should have the right to leave in a dignified outfit
Geneviève Brichet, founder of the group “Mort sans toi(t)”
Other irregularities are also noted, in Lyon in particular.
“Recently, there was a deceased for whom the police investigation lasted several months and for whom the coffin could not therefore be closed before.
After a while, you imagine what the body is like... so the town refused to take care of dressing him for the funeral.
It was for our apple.
Anyone should have the right to leave in a dignified outfit
,” says Geneviève Brichet.
Since 2012, too, a law relating to procedures for identifying deceased persons has made it compulsory to take DNA samples from a deceased
“when he is unknown”
– with a view to using it for the purposes of identifying the body.
However, in reality, these samples which are taken
“at the request of the public prosecutor”
, specifies the text of the law, are not systematic.
Also read “A little voice told me to leave”: who are the voluntary disappeared and why do they choose to disappear into nature?
The costs incurred, the lack of qualified medical staff who are already overloaded, and the fact that no loved one follows the burial procedure means that, often, the process simply goes by the wayside.
Result: in France there are approximately 31 times more deaths under .
Reduce anonymous
However, solutions exist elsewhere in Europe to try to better identify the deceased.
In Belgium, in particular, the federal police publish on the internet photos of the bodies found accompanied by information on the people: height, weight, personal effects found on the corpse, tattoos or other distinctive signs... No site of this type exists at all. side of the French police, nor the gendarmerie, who are well behind on the subject.
The French authorities placidly recommend that relatives of the missing
“conduct the investigation by
[their]
own means”
and
“use social networks for help”
.
Read alsoParis: the town hall wants the expansion of the homeless center in the 16th arrondissement
Very little used in France, a technique nevertheless makes it easier to recognize unknown deceased people.
This is the so-called
“odontological”
or dental identification, which is based on the atypical nature of each dentition.
Broken tooth, crown, filling, implant?
These small interventions are specific to each person.
In Belgium and Sweden, dentists systematically keep this information about their patients.
In Belgium, when a person disappears, their medical file is retrieved in order to be cross-referenced with data from a central file on unidentified bodies.
This allows the authorities to considerably reduce the number of anonymous deaths in the country: to less than ten in some years.
In France, this data is also saved... but only with the practitioner, which prevents the authorities from consulting it during their research.
The “autonomous waterproof” vault technology is reserved for common grounds and not for individual burials.
With greater ventilation, it allows bodies to decompose in five years instead of ten.
Pierre Terraz
A saving fight
Inequality unto death is a tangible reality.
In Rennes, the Dignité cemetery collective, more militant than the others, points out the latest trend in the funeral industry:
“autonomous waterproof vaults”
.
This technology, which allows better ventilation of the coffin, aims to decompose the body of the deceased in five years instead of ten.
It is currently reserved for common land and not for individual burials.
“It’s useful
,” concedes a member of the Rennes collective, “
but abnormal.
In fact, the law requires municipalities to bury bodies for a minimum of five years.
Beyond that, these bodies are extracted then placed in ossuaries or cremated.
There is therefore a stated turnover and profitability objective.
»
The collective denounces a form of discrimination for bodies that have less value than others.
By honoring these dead, we also act for the living
Chrystel Estela, from the Morts de la Rue collective
The aim may seem a little matter-of-fact: to make the flesh an object of absolute equality.
Except that the fight of these collectives can sometimes prove life-saving for the families of the deceased.
“
Sometimes families only discover years later that their loved one was buried without them
,” says Chrystel Estela.
However, after five years, it is impossible to pay homage to a grave, and therefore difficult to mourn.
“At each burial, we write a report with the place, the time, the texts read, the weather that day... Thus we provide possible families with information on the ceremony, and we can give them meet the environment in which their loved one gravitated to the street, the cafes they frequented, for example
,” she continues.
Also read: Laurent de Cherisey, trusted smuggler
To do this, the collective conducts the survey with the Samu social and the various street stakeholders: local residents, marauders, comrades in trouble... And the coordinator ends up remembering the association's slogan, and its commitment:
“By challenging society, by honoring these dead, we are also acting for the living
. ”
In the common land division of the Thiais cemetery (94) many anonymous graves bear the inscriptions “X” or “Male/Female X” without dates of birth.
Pierre Terraz
About the 2024 Reporters d’Espoirs young prize
The Reporters d'Espoirs association has been working for 20 years with journalists and editorial staff who wish to make their media levers for disseminating knowledge and the desire to act.
As the European elections approach, which will be held in June, the young Reporters of Hope 2024 prize had the theme: “
Media, make us want Europe!”
".
Here are the winners, selected from 140 candidates.
The 4 “France” winners
:
1st Prize: Pierre Terraz for “Morts sous X” (France)
2nd Prize: Amélie Reichmuth, “Denmark: Thanks to Elderlearn, integration becomes a vector of social bond” (France/Sweden)
3rd Prize: Emilie Andrieux, “Mental health first aid students at the University of Bordeaux” (France)
3rd Prize ex-aequo: Marie Dougnac, “Construction in raw earth, reinforced against concrete” (France)
The 3 “Francophonie” winners:
1st Prize: Sami Zaïbi, “Samsø and renewable energy, utopia come true” (Switzerland, Egypt)
2nd Prize: Cristina Coellen, “Extracting heat from wastewater, a sustainable heating technique to conquer European cities” (Austria)
3rd Prize: Fatou Toure, “The NGO Village Pilote, a glimmer of hope for street children” (Senegal)