“Pascal died in 1993, at the age of 23.

Why attack his grave and his memory, twenty-nine years after his death?

".

These words, reported by

Ouest-France

, are those of a disappointed father after robberies in the cemetery of Gouvix (Calvados), a few weeks ago. 

At the end of January, in Houdain, near Béthune (Pas-de-Calais), the police had also opened an investigation after thefts perpetrated in the cemetery of the city.

Metal, brass or copper objects such as ornaments or crosses had been stolen from at least 483 graves.

Metals visibly intended to be resold, reported

France Bleu

, citing several other misdeeds in cemeteries in the Nord department.

France 3 Normandy

reports, for its part, the case of the Petit-Quevilly cemetery, near Rouen (Seine-Maritime).

Families have just filed a complaint after repeated looting, again.

Plaques, medallions, statuettes, but also pots, vases, plants and flowers are disappearing.

"In fact, our mourning, we never end it because with each theft, it's a stab," testified on local television a woman who regularly comes to meditate at the grave of her father, who died there. five years old.

Exasperated by the situation, she would have decided to have the tomb moved “to the cemetery of a neighboring town”.

Thefts elucidated thanks to a GPS plotter

Asked, the town hall of Petit-Quevilly dismisses the idea of ​​​​installing video protection cameras "which would be useless in the face of individuals, often masked, who cannot be identified in the context of an investigation", but announces to reinforce the patrols of the municipal police.

In 2019, while a dozen complaints had been filed by bereaved families, victims of thefts in the cemetery of Lucerne-d'Outremer, a village between Granville and Avranches (Manche), the mystery had finally been solved thanks to... a GPS tracker, hidden in the false bottom of a hydrangea pot.

The thieves had admitted the facts and received a reminder of the law.

On paper, the perpetrators of these acts risk up to 15,000 euros in fines and one year in prison.

However, it is very difficult to make statistics on a possible "phenomenon", since many thefts are not declared or are discovered weeks or even months after being committed.

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