The Frenchwoman was buried three years ago, but she is still breathing deeply

Profimedia

The photo is symbolic.

58 years old Jeanne Pouchain from the village of Saint-Joseph near Lyon in the eyes of the French authorities has not existed for the last three years, but it is still very much alive. The complications were the result of a legal dispute with a former employee at her dry cleaners. The court declared her dead in 2017, and Pouchain then worked to have her officially revived. As she explained, he is her lawyer Sylvain Cormier said the matter would be resolved quickly as she had a certificate from her doctor that she was still very much alive. But the court mills grind slowly.

Cormier was moved by the matter himself. “It’s a crazy story. I couldn’t believe it. I would never have thought that a judge would declare someone dead without a death certificate. But the plaintiff, without any evidence, claimed that Mrs. Pouchain was dead and everyone believed her. Nobody checked, “ Cormier explained to the AFP news agency.

How did it get complicated?

After more than a decade of legal disputes with a former employee, Pouchain was the first to declare pCourt of Appeal of Lyons. It began in 2004, when a labor court ruled that Pouchain’s employee, who fired her, must pay about 14,000 euros in compensation. But the verdict concerned her company and not her personally, and Pouchain did not pay damages. In 2009, the employee decided to file a new lawsuit. Following the court saga, the appellate court, which believed Pouchain was dead, ruled that compensation should be paid by her son and husband. The case returned to the hands of the labor court, which the plaintiff then informed in 2017 that her former boss was not responding to her letters and that she had died. Pouchain was therefore deleted from official records, her ID card, driver’s license, bank account, health insurance and other official identity documents she needed to prove she was not yet under the rug were revoked.

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Guilty alone?

“I don’t have personal documents, health insurance, I can’t prove to the banks that I’m alive nisem I’m nothing,” explained Pouchain, who accused the former employee of fabricating her death in order to obtain compensation through her relatives. The plaintiff’s lawyer, on the other hand, claims that she was the author of Pouchain’s own death, as she wanted to avoid paying damages. Either way, attorney Cormier is just these days again trying to get her back alive in the eyes of the state.