A woman who was officially declared dead in 2017 has spent years trying to convince authorities in France that she is still alive.
58-year-old Jeanne Pouchain said that she disappeared from France’s administration records after she was declared dead by a court in 2017 after a long-standing legal dispute involving her employee.
She told reporters that her lawyer told her that the issue would be resolved right away “but because there had been a ruling, this wasn’t enough.”
Being declared dead has prevented her and her husband from using their joint bank account. She has also been deprived of essential amenities as her health insurance, driving license, and identity cards have all been invalidated.
Her car was also seized by authorities over an unpaid debt. Pouchain now fears their family furniture will be next.
Her status as deceased is the result of a Lyon court decision that declared her death even though a death certificate was not presented.
The court’s decision came in November 2017 at the end of a legal dispute involving Pouchain’s former employee, who was seeking compensation after she lost her job 20 years ago.
It was in 2004 when an industrial tribunal had ordered Pouchain to pay her former employee 14,000 euros in damages. But Pouchain’s lawyer claims her company had no responsibility for her dismissal.
According to Pouchain’s attorney Sylvain Cormier, judicial errors ended with the Appeals Court of Lyon ruling that she was not among the living.
Pouchain claims the former employee invented her death to claim the damages.
“At first, I had a hard time believing my client,” Cormier said. He also blames the judges and their “extreme reticence to repair their error.”
“When an error is so enormous, it’s hard to admit,” he added.
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