Question 6135 — death and death

Summary

Mr. Jean-François Coulomme draws the attention of the Minister of State, Minister of the Interior, to the possibility of legislating in favor of the generalized development of multi-faith squares within municipal and intercommunal cemeteries. Since the covid-19 pandemic which caused an increase in deaths as well as the closure of borders, Muslim citizens, a significant part of whom repatriated their deceased to their country of origin, encountered the lack of Muslim squares in France. Furthermore, more and more French people of Muslim faith now have more significant family ties with their loved ones living in France, for several generations now, than with the historical country of origin of their families and cannot imagine a burial outside France, far from their parents, children and friends. Thus, of the 35,000 French cemeteries, the number of cemeteries offering a confessional square respecting the Muslim religious rite is estimated at around 600. These squares have therefore become essential because in Islam the souls of believers must rest together in the same cemetery, the graves following the direction of the Qibla, that is to say must be oriented towards the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, a holy place for Muslims. As for the others cults, the differences are minimal: for the Jews, the graves must be aligned in rows, in the west-east direction towards Jerusalem, as required by the Torah and for the Orthodox, the deceased must always be buried facing the East. When these squares are located in municipal cemeteries, which is the vast majority of cases, only residents of the municipality have access to them. As for intercommunal cemeteries having multi-faith spaces or Muslim squares, they are today very insufficient in number and the areas allocated, in particular for Muslims, have become too limited. In France, the legal obligation is to be buried in the town where you have your main residence, in the town where you have a secondary residence, in the town where there already exists a family burial or in the town of death, which complicates the process for the faithful affiliated to a cemetery that does not have a “confessional square”. This pushes many Muslims, Jews and Orthodox people to choose the option of repatriating their body to one of the family's countries of origin, to be certain of compliance with the burial rules specific to their religion. The creation of denominational squares is currently left to the discretion of mayors. Indeed, in a circular of February 19, 2008, the Minister of the Interior strongly encourages mayors to create denominational squares, a legitimate request according to the Machelon commission, seeing in the latter “a major issue in terms of integration”. The possible solutions are therefore, on the scale of a community of urban areas, to design and provide families with a multi-faith cemetery open to all residents of the agglomeration and at the municipal level, provide citizens with a dedicated denominational square. It therefore becomes urgent and important, for the maintenance of the best possible social cohesion within the French nation, to allow Muslim, Jewish and Orthodox citizens to feel fully French and, for this, to allow them to bury their dead in respect of their religious confession and in their country, France. He asks him if it is possible to envisage that he and the Government act to adapt the law and all legal measures allowing the rapid and widespread development of these multi-faith squares throughout the territory.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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