X-Message-Number: 13802
Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 10:08:20 -0400
From: "J. Hughes" <>
Subject: French amateurs forbidden

Freezing Dead Mom in Basement Illegal, Court Says 
  
Updated 8:43 AM ET May 30, 2000 

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - A brother and sister who cannot bear to be
separated from their deceased mother may not keep her corpse in a
glass-fronted freezer at their home, a French appeals court has ruled.

Joelle Leroy, 50, and her 52-year-old brother Michel -- both unmarried and
deeply devoted to their mother -- wanted to install her last resting place
in the basement of their house on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion.

But the court ruled Monday that, "The conservation of a dead person through
freezing is not considered as a way of treating a body in the eyes of the
law."

The body of Lise Leroy has been kept in a morgue freezer in Reunion since
she died last July.

Local authorities rejected the Leroys' request and the pair, both teachers,
took the case to the court in this southwestern French city which deals
with appeals from distant Reunion.

"We think we are suffering an injustice here. French law is the toughest in
the world with regards to this," said Joelle Leroy, who said she and her
brother might take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

"We refuse to see our mother forcibly buried," she said.

Under French law, bodies can be either buried or cremated. 

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