A 67-year-old French retiree is fighting to prove that he is alive and well even though public bodies have declared him dead for around twenty years.
Dominique Le May, who had been wanted for 20 years to receive an inheritance after the death of his father in Finistère, had his habits on the island of Nantes where he lives in his old apartment.
After trying in vain to collect his medication in a pharmacy, due to his health card which no longer worked, the septuagenarian went to make a claim to the Health Insurance Fund.
On the spot, a woman at the counter informed him that he was “declared dead”, while his housing assistance and his small pension were cut off, according to what the newspaper “Ouest-France” reported on Sunday.
“I have some things left in the freezer. And my landlord is pretty understanding about the rent. But I’m afraid my phone will be cut off,” the sixty-year-old who had his bank card confiscated due to a three-digit negative balance told the French media.
The man who wanted to hide his criminal past after his release from prison in 1988 had left his native Finistère to be forgotten by the world which declared him “dead” today, continued “Ouest-France”.
In September 2022, an extract from a judgment of the Quimper court was published in a legal announcement confirming his absence from his department of residence, as provided for in the French Civil Code.
Even if the situation is about to be resolved, Mr. Le May is determined to take legal action for this story of administrative death which forced him to file an over-indebtedness case.
“It’s the State I’m attacking, they didn’t do their job! They knew that I had been released from prison in Nantes in 1998. It was not difficult to make the connection…,” the sixty-year-old explained to the French media.
