Question 16257 — death and death

Summary

Mr. Julien Guibert draws the attention of the Minister of Regional Planning and Decentralization to the growing difficulties encountered by rural municipalities, particularly in the department of Nièvre, concerning the management and maintenance of their municipal cemeteries. Communal cemeteries constitute places of memory, contemplation and transmission deeply anchored in village life. Their maintenance contributes to the dignity due to the deceased, respect for families and the preservation of municipal and rural heritage. However, this public service mission weighs more and more heavily on the finances of communities, already faced with numerous budgetary constraints and a general increase in their operating expenses. Since the entry into force of Law No. 2014-110 of February 6, 2014 aimed at better regulating the use of plant protection products on the national territory, supplemented in particular by the decree of January 15, 2021, local authorities can no longer use chemical plant protection products for the maintenance of spaces open to the public, a ban extended to all cemeteries since July 1, 2022. If the objectives of protecting public health and preserving biodiversity are widely shared, their application raises real difficulties in many municipalities, particularly in highly rural departments such as Nièvre. The alternative solutions currently recommended - manual or mechanical weeding, revegetation, voluntary grassing or use of specialized equipment - require human, material and financial resources which many municipalities do not have. Many Mayors are now warning of a workload that has become difficult to sustain for municipal teams that are already under heavy strain. In certain small communities, the absence of a municipal agent or the lack of financial capacity to regularly involve specialized companies makes the maintenance of cemeteries particularly complex. The increasing presence of spontaneous vegetation in the paths or around the burials also causes misunderstandings and sometimes tensions with those administered, who often equate this development with a lack of maintenance of funeral spaces. At the same time, since the elimination, on January 1, 2021, of funeral taxes provided for by article L. 2223-22 of the general code of local authorities, certain municipalities have lost revenue which made it possible, even modestly, to contribute to the financing of costs linked to funeral operations and the maintenance of cemetery spaces. If this removal responded to a logic of administrative simplification and reduction of taxation weighing on families during funerals, it also deprived many rural municipalities of a financial lever useful for maintaining and maintaining these spaces of contemplation, without any compensation being provided. This loss of revenue occurred at the very time when the obligations weighing on municipalities in terms of cemetery maintenance were reinforced, creating a jaws effect that was particularly penalizing for rural communities. To these difficulties are also added the costs linked to the resumption of abandoned concessions, the securing of monuments threatening ruin, the accessibility of sites or even the expansion of certain cemeteries in municipalities with low investment capacity. This situation is all the more worrying as rural municipalities have less and less financial room for maneuver to meet obligations whose cost continues to increase. Many local elected officials are worried today about no longer being able to properly carry out this mission, which is essential to the respect due to the deceased, to the dignity of families and the preservation of local traditions. In the most modest municipalities, the cost of acquiring suitable equipment sometimes remains disproportionate to local budgetary capacities, while intermunicipal pooling solutions do not always meet the constraints of organization, availability of equipment or geographical distance. He asks him if the Government is considering a reflection overall on the consequences of the abolition of funeral taxes provided for by article L. 2223-22 of the general code of local authorities for rural municipalities, if it considers that the means currently left to the communities are sufficient to allow them to correctly ensure the maintenance of municipal cemeteries in compliance with the regulatory obligations imposed on them, if a simplification of procedures administrative and regulatory requirements applicable to the management of municipal cemeteries is envisaged in order to restore more flexibility to local elected officials, if the terms of application of the rules relating to "zero phyto" in cemeteries could be subject to adaptations taking greater account of the realities and constraints specific to rural territories, and finally if the Government intends to give municipalities new levers to making it possible to ensure the long-term maintenance and management of their cemeteries without further increasing the burden on local finances.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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