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PARIS -- Renowned for its breathtaking scenery, pine trees, rocky coastline and a clear blue Mediterranean Sea, the Riviera town of Le Lavandou is drawing headlines for a new local law that makes dying a grave offense.
The town's only cemetery is full, and the project for a new one near the coast was rejected earlier this month by a regional court, which ruled that the plan violated a law on sea shore constructions.
Facing the lack of cemetery space, Le Lavandou, 25 miles east of Toulon, on Tuesday passed a law: "It is forbidden without a cemetery plot to die on the territory of the commune."
Currently, 19 people are awaiting a final resting place. Since the deceased were unable to secure a cemetery plot, they are temporarily being "hosted" in friends' vaults.
Under the town's planning code, the coastal graveyard project did not qualify as using "light equipment," which is authorized on sea shores.
A group of ecologists took the town project to court and proposed an alternative location _ a rock quarry in a less populated part of town
Le Lavandou's Mayor, Gil Bernardi, is fiercely opposed. He likened the quarry to a "dump" that does not respect the dead. In a telephone interview, he acknowledged the ruling against dying was "absurd" but insisted it was "enacted because of an absurd situation."
He said there would be -- obviously -- no punishment for those found breaking the law.
The cemetery crisis has been brewing for three years and could continue for some time, Bernardi said. The appeal procedure to overturn the regional court ruling could last up to three years.
Meanwhile, only about half of the 80 people or so who die each year in Le Lavandou will do so legally as plot owners.
