Dying costs 4,000 euros: what if the Sécu covered the funeral?

According to Reporterre, which publishes an interview on the subject, funerals in France cost at least 4,000 euros in 2026, and prices keep climbing. A collective proposes extending Social Security to death: full coverage of funeral costs and the creation of a genuine bereavement leave. The outlet points to a contrast: the costs of a birth are fully covered by the community, but not those of a death. The summary also mentions pre-need funeral insurance contracts. We do not, at this stage, have the detail of the costing or of the proposed funding. What follows is our reading.

Imagine the scene: a kitchen, a table, a funeral director's quote placed beside the deceased's papers. You weep, you organise, and you compare coffins the way you compare phone plans. That is capitalism at its rawest: even the last day is a product, with options and a premium range.

What this story tells us is that death belongs to what is called social reproduction, the work and spending that sustain lives and their ending, and that the system pretends sits outside "the economy". Caring, feeding, raising children, looking after the elderly: all of it rests on households, and above all on women, often for nothing or for very little. When the community steps back, the bill does not vanish; it lands on the family. Funerals are the most brutal example: an unforeseen, immediate expense that cannot be put off.

Who handles it in practice? The paperwork, the phone calls, the wake, the meal after the service: very often this is invisible female labour, squeezed in between two working days. Hence the importance of the second demand, bereavement leave: without time, money is not enough. Losing a parent and returning to work three days later is the double shift applied to grief.

There is also a logic of dispossession. Pre-need funeral insurance contracts, which Reporterre mentions, turn anxiety into a market: you sell peace of mind to those who fear leaving a debt to their children. A service that could be shared becomes a source of income for insurers and private operators. The contrast with birth, which the community accepts as its responsibility, shows that this is not a fate but a political choice.

Social Security was built on a simple idea: against the accidents of life, you contribute according to your means and receive according to your needs. Including death would not be a whim; it would be finishing the job. The question remains what would go into it: a public funeral service, capped prices, a flat-rate package? The debate deserves to be opened, before the next quote lands on a kitchen table.