French court cold on frozen bodies

PARIS, France -- France's top administrative appeal court has refused a brother and sister the right to keep their mother's frozen corpse on ice, saying it was not a legal burial.

The Council of State ruled that freezing corpses -- a technique known as cryonics that is allowed in the United States, Britain and some other countries -- was not provided for under French law and the corpse must be buried or cremated.

The defendants, Michel and Joelle Leroy, and Remy Martinot, another man fighting to stop local officials switching off the freezers where his late parents lie, must now go to the European Court of Human Rights as their last hope.

The Martinot case had attracted interest after the son opened the vault containing the freezer as a $4-a-visit tourist attraction.

"Conserving the corpse of a deceased person by freezing does not amount to a burial allowed by current statutes," the Council declared in its ruling.

Michel Leroy told the daily France-Soir that he and his sister had their mother frozen in a morgue in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, to preserve the love she shared with them during her life.

"On many occasions, she showed she wanted the three of us to stay united in this love," he said. "It is our responsibility to honour this desire."

In France's other frozen corpse case, Martinot kept his parents' bodies deep frozen because his father believed science would one day be able to resurrect them.

A court in Saumur, in the Loire Valley in western France, ruled in March that the bodies must be either buried or cremated, but delayed switching off the freezers in the crypt of the Martinot family chateau until all appeals were exhausted.

Raymond Martinot, a doctor who believed science would one day be able to cheat death, froze his wife's corpse at minus 60 degrees Celsius (-76F) when she died of cancer in 1984 aged 49.

It was not until Martinot froze his father's body at his death in February of this year that local officials objected to the procedure. The crypt had become a local tourist attraction, with visits costing four euros ($4) per person.