All Saints. “Less and less unique place of meditation”, soon the death of cemeteries?

A recent study released in 2024 shows that cemeteries are less and less frequented by the French for around fifteen years. And the trend is unlikely to reverse.

According to a recent study, fifteen years ago, in 2009, 60% of people aged 40 and over had a location in a cemetery. In 2024, they will be 5% less.

Not really enough to talk about a free fall. But in fact, frequentation of cemeteries would also be a question of generation, of age, as much as of society.

Franck Lehuede is director of studies and research at Crédoc, the research center for the study and observation of living conditions. A study and research organization serving those involved in economic and social life.

Every five years, at the request of the National Chamber of Funeral Arts (CSNAF), Crédoc carries out a telephone survey on practices related to funerals with a sample of 1,000 respondents aged 40 and over.

Among the main observations, “the cemetery appears less and less as the only place of contemplation.”

The study also explains that attendance at cemeteries has declined significantly over the past fifteen years, “including in symbolic moments like All Saints’ Day.”

Proof of this is the figures from this recent 2024 study, as Franck Lehuede recalls: “In 2009, 69% of people told us they went to the cemetery on All Saints’ Day.

“Today, in 2024, 57% of people say they go to the cemetery on All Saints’ Day.“

And that's not all, as the director of the study points out, “If I take the proportion of individuals who go to the cemetery at least once a year, I will have 71% of people who are concerned today. Whereas in 2009, they were 79%.”

Finally, the people who frequent cemeteries the most are the elderly. “These are b“A lot more people aged 80 and over, also a little more 70-79 years old, age groups of people more likely to have geographical and emotional proximity to a deceased person.”

In summary, people under 80, although loyal visitors to cemeteries, visit them less and less and less and less often. Which reinforces the trend of a desertion of these places of contemplation.

According to Franck Lehuede, three reasons mainly explain this drop in cemetery attendance.

The first, the increase in cremations: “not only are cremations increasing, but they are not necessarily bringing ashes to a cemetery.”

The study recalls that 42% of deaths result in cremation. This is also the case in Nantes. “NWe are observing a slight increase in ballot submissions, which increased from 341 in 2020 to 390 in 2023.explains the Nantes metropolitan service in charge of cemeteries.

Another point, the bursting geography of families. “We can go there from time to time, but not all the time, and so sometimes after a while, we don't go there anymore.”

The relationship to the memory of the deceased has also changed. “This is a reason which is linked to the relationship we have today with the memory of the deceased, which requires less need for a social place to mourn, to pay homage to the person.”

More and more people are saying to themselves “I don't need to go to the cemetery to be able to think about the person, I have created a specific place at home, or I have another place, that he, whom she liked, to whom I go to think of him or her”

Frank Lehuede

Director of study and research at Crédoc

What about concessions?

People who still visit cemeteries come to maintain a grave, or honor the memory of a person. The older these people are, the more concessions they have.

The study shows, for example, that 91% of people over 80 own dealerships.

Concessions, i.e. locations in cemeteries (vault or grave) granted has families who have a right of use and maintenance. But it is the municipality which remains the owner of the land.

When concession contracts end, municipalities notify families, descendants or beneficiaries and offer to renew the concession contract. The latter then have two years to come forward, failing which, they will expire and be recovered by the municipality which will be able to offer them to other new families.

Proof of the lack of interest sometimes in cemeteries, certain municipalities recover a few more unclaimed concessions each year.

In Ancenis-Saint-Géréon, a town of around 11,000 inhabitants in Loire-Atlantique, there are two cemeteries. The largest is that of the old town of Ancenis, the Tertre cemetery. And each year, around twenty concessions are taken over by the municipality and therefore abandoned by families, by choice.

“The less we go there, the less we want to go there”specifies Laurence, in charge of the cemetery service at the town hall of Ancenis-Saint-Géréon.

She notes that a majority of the families concerned and involved or geographically close still take over the concessions. “Of the 52 concessions expiring in 2023, in October 2024, only 6 have so far been abandoned and 24 renewed. But we have to wait because the two years of waiting to decide have sometimes not yet passed for certain families.”

It must be taken into account that even when a concession has expired and abandoned, it is not necessarily recoverable immediately.

“It is said that on average, the last burial in the concession must have taken place at least 30 years previously before it can be resumed. Time to be certain that the body has been completely reduced, decomposed,” specifies the mayor’s employee. Otherwise, it's impossible to transfer it to someone else.

In a large metropolis like Nantes, the demand for concessions in cemeteries is increasing.

“There were 243 requests to purchase concessions for cellars in 2020, compared to 350 in 2023”specifies Nantes Métropole.

The community is able to respond to this demand thanks in particular to theincrease in its cavern and columbarium equipment. By definition, the columbarium is “a public and collective resting place of cemeteries”,“the caurne brings together one or more urns from the same family”.

Ella is also increasing the number of common ground locations in vaults and increasingonversion of unallocated concession locations if necessary.

The city has also reduced the duration of concessions in caves and columbariums. Nantes Métropole mentions it, with supporting figures: “We are increased to a duration of 7 years in 2023 with the aim of reducing the cost of funerals at the time of the funeral and allowing rotation of equipment.

Finally, the city froze purchases in advance (excluding deaths), which therefore makes it possible to offer response to this growing demand.

What if the “death” of cemeteries was due to new funeral techniques supposed to dissolve bodies more quickly? Fewer bodies, more need for spaces?

This scenario is still far from happening, but new funeral techniques have already been tested in Belgium, in the United States, or Canada. They are not authorized in France, but according to Franck Lehuede, “There is some lobbying from groups who believe in these solutions, and who find them better for the environment, more sustainable, an argument to better promote them.”

This would be humusation, the fact of reintegrating human remains, naturally, into the cycle of life, into humus, upper layer of soil created, maintained and modified by the decomposition of organic matter.

Another technique, aquamation, “it is a water-based solution in which you have put the products which will gradually eat away at the body”, says Franck Lehuede.

Finally, the promise or cryomation which consists “to immerse the body in liquid nitrogen”.

With this last method, according to the studies which speak of it, the body would disintegrate in a few hours.

But Franck Lehuede wants to be skeptical.

In the Crédoc study it is also clearly specified that “These three techniques remain largely unknown. More than 9 out of 10 French people say they have never heard of them. According to our surveys, if they were authorized in France, they would remain in the minority”….Until when?

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