Paris Residents Can Enter Lottery To Share Cemetery Space With Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde

Paris officials announced a unique lottery allowing residents to win burial plots in the city’s most famous cemeteries by restoring abandoned tombs. Thirty plots are available across three historic graveyards: ten in Père-Lachaise cemetery, where Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and Édith Piaf are buried; ten in Montparnasse cemetery, home to Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Susan Sontag; and ten in Montmartre cemetery, where Edgar Degas, Émile Zola and Vaslav Nijinsky rest. Winners must purchase existing tombs for 4,000 euros ($4,600) plus restoration costs, then buy lease rights starting at 976 euros ($1,120) for ten years or 17,668 euros ($20,290) for perpetual rights. City hall said “cemetery visitors throughout France have expressed an interest in restoring a historic funerary monument in order to obtain a burial plot concession in return.” Applications opened Monday. (Story URL)