Coronavirus casualty Frenchwoman naked in plastic bag

This 10 April 24020 French TV video is called (translated) Son of a coronavirus victim, Bruno Lefèvre denounces the corporation in charge of his mother’s funeral.

Translated from Dutch NOS radio today:

Dead body in French storage shed: naked in plastic bag in chest

In France, commotion has arisen about the warehouse where corpses are kept. It is a chilled hangar on the wholesale market ‘Rungis’, south of Paris. Normally for meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. Now the enormous hall serves to relieve the mortuaries in Paris.

“I was told that my mother had died and that I had to do something quickly: her body could not stay in the hospital”, said Frenchman Bruno Lefèvre on French television yesterday. He himself lived a great distance from Paris. Before he could organize things well by telephone, he was told that his mother’s body had already been taken to the shed in Rungis.

The bill for the unsolicited move also came immediately: 159 euros for the first six days that his mother was there and then 35 euros for each extra day. If he wanted to give his mother one last greeting, in the hangar: 55 euros. These days the cooled warehouse is managed by a funeral corporation. That says that it incurs costs for personnel, security and furnishing. The company suggested Lefèvre could have a small ceremony for his mother. That would then cost another 105 euros.

Lefèvre thought it was a great scandal. He had to pay to deal with his mother’s tragic death and has not been able to say goodbye since her death. If he wants to see her body again, then he has to pull out his wallet. “In the hospital they didn’t even want to give her things to get her dressed. Now she’s in a storage shed, naked in a plastic bag in a chest. I’m ashamed.”

Lefèvre’s story caused quite a commotion in France.