Paris puts graves into play with a “cemetery lottery” to help clean up forgotten tombstones

Paris City Hall offers a rare chance to be buried among some of history’s most famous artists. All it takes is a little luck, a few thousand euros and the desire to dust off a dilapidated tombstone.

Wednesday was the deadline to enter the drawing to purchase a burial site in one of the city’s iconic cemeteries.

Winners will have the chance to restore a forgotten and overgrown tomb.

In exchange for the restoration work, they will be able to purchase the rights to a burial plot in the cemetery.

Parisian cemeteries attract visitors

The Père-Lachaise cemetery is one of the most iconic burial sites in Paris and one of the most famous cemeteries in the world. With Montmartre to the north and Montparnasse to the south, it is one of the city’s three large cemeteries.

Famous names buried at Père-Lachaise include playwright Oscar Wilde, Doors singer Jim Morrison and the composer Frédéric Chopin.

Cobbled lanes wind around the cemetery, with around 70,000 graves located on a hill in eastern Paris, which attracts both tourists and mourners: more than three million people visit the cemetery each year.

Among those buried in the Montparnasse cemetery are the writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Susan Sontag.

The painter Edgar Degas and the writer Émile Zola are buried in the Montmartre cemetery.

Municipal authorities have identified 30 graves in need of repair, or 10 in each of the three cemeteries.

A precious funeral space in Paris

In Paris, it is the families of the dead – rather than municipal authorities – who are responsible for maintaining tombstones.

Over time, some resting places became abandoned, with crumbling tombstones and overgrown inscriptions.

It is almost impossible to find new burial sites in historic cemeteries, and cemeteries in the Paris metropolitan area have been almost full since the beginning of the 20th century, according to the town hall.

Paris authorities said inviting the public to clean headstones was “a compromise” between respecting the dead and giving Parisians a chance to be buried in their city.

The draw, so far reserved for residents of the French capital, is expected to take place later in January.

Registration costs 125 euros (about 200 Canadian dollars) and winners will have to pay 4,000 euros (about 6,400 Canadian dollars) to secure the grave they will maintain.

Those who are selected have six months to restore their assigned dilapidated tomb – working with licensed stonemasons – after which they can purchase their own tomb.

Burial plots will cost approximately $28,000 for perpetual rights.