The association “for an alternative funeral in the Loiret” has about sixty people and is working on the creation of a cooperative that would allow funerals to be offered respecting certain values, such as solidarity, ecology … The project does not is not yet finalized, but the association is already organizing “mortal aperitifs”, to discuss this theme of death.
What exactly is a funeral cooperative, Nathalie Grenon?
It is a concept that was created in Quebec several years ago and which, in France, found its first incarnation in a funeral cooperative created in Nantes, followed two years later by Rennes (it is still the Bretons on social innovation showing us the way). In fact, a funeral cooperative is a funeral director’s business, but in cooperative form. In this case, it is a SCIC, a cooperative society of collective interest. And the word collective interest says everything about the project.
The idea is to provide the inhabitants of Loiret with alternatives when they mourn their loved one, in anticipation of their own death, to offer them things that, perhaps, do not yet exist?
It’s exactly that. In “funeral alternative”, the name of our association, there is an alternative, that is to say to think about proposals which do not exist or which have existed and which we have lost over time. With the disintegration of families, with removals … Today, we mainly die, for example in hospitals and nursing homes. We no longer die at home. This requires effectively rethinking the accompanying rites. That requires rethinking what the place of death is today in our society. Is this just an individual fact? Should we actually find the collective behind this mourning, as is the case in many civilizations? And as it was a few decades ago in France.
For example, one of the projects would be to create several farewell houses in the department to offer an alternative to the religious ceremony, which sometimes is the only way to find the family, to offer a rite of passage, even if we are not believers?
Rites are essential for, not doing this work of mourning, we hear that all the time, “you have to do your work of mourning”, etc. The work of mourning is saying to the individual: “If you are not doing well, it is your problem, take it upon yourself. Mourning, since the dawn of time, must be collective. It must be worn collectively. However, according to the Ifop polling institute, 51% of French people do not believe in a God, whatever the God. Yet the majority of funerals are today in church. Indeed, because we need this rite, because the Church knows how to do it and they have experience in the matter and do it rather well. Well, people continue to actually go to be buried. Have funerals. religious because there is no alternative. We knew how to do it at the time of the French Revolution with marriage. It was not easy, but still today. There are civil marriages. . You can even have a civil baptism. But today, organizing a civil funeral is difficult, unless you are cremated, unless there is a cremation since there is a hall. e.
But there, sometimes, there are ceremonies, a little cold moments where, precisely, something is missing. Is it finding something in between that you are looking for?
Yes, and then, even if cremation is developing in an exceptional way in our country, many people continue to want to be buried. And often, in cemeteries, there is a vague courtyard. The rooms are rare. We are going to launch a group of citizens who will call the mayors to identify the existing places. We saw a very beautiful room in Neuville aux Bois, for example, which is at the entrance to the cemetery and which allows these ceremonies. There is another, also very pretty, in the Frédéville cemetery, in Saint-Jean-de-Braye. So, there are undoubtedly other rooms of this type in the department. So we are going to create a sort of directory that will make places of this type available to families. And indeed, the ultimate phase would indeed be to have dedicated houses, but houses that belong to everyone because death must once again be in the bosom of our community.
The goal is to set it up fairly quickly, this cooperative?
So, it’s a project that stems from a collective intelligence. Collective intelligence takes a little longer than pulling out a checkbook and starting a funeral director. So no, we did not set a goal in ourselves. On the other hand, we have set ourselves objectives at the level of certain themes. For example on the establishment of a circular economy to recover dormant burials, for example, there, we do have objectives. We are working with State services on the issue of funerals for people in precarious situations. There, we have action sheets on which we worked with local authorities, with members of the departmental council and charitable associations. And there we have specific objectives. And we will be releasing a very specific action plan at the start of the year.
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