Paris launches lottery offering burial plots near Piaf, Morrison, and Oscar Wilde

Paris, the world’s most visited country's capital, has launched an unusual lottery giving residents a chance to be buried near cultural behemoths like Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, and Frédéric Chopin, provided they agree to restore the abandoned graves first.

The initiative, recently announced by Paris City Hall, offers 30 neglected heritage tombs at three of the city’s most famous cemeteries, Père-Lachaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse, in an effort to preserve history and address the city’s century-long shortage of burial space.

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Paris’s burial lottery: Where the burial plots are located

As per CNN travel, in Paris’s burial places lottery, 10 plots are up for grabs in Père-Lachaise Cemetery, which counts “The Doors” frontman Jim Morrison, playwright Oscar Wilde, and singer Édith Piaf among its illustrious residents.


There are also 10 plots in Montparnasse Cemetery, home to writers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Susan Sontag, as well as 10 more in Montmartre Cemetery, where painter Edgar Degas, author Émile Zola, and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky are all buried.

Paris’s burial lottery plots: Why Paris is raffling off burial plots

Paris is raffling off burial plots to restore tombs that have fallen into disrepair while offering residents a rare opportunity to secure one of the city’s most coveted final resting places. “Within the first 24 hours we had 1,000 clicks on the application forms,” said Paul Simondon, a deputy to Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, who oversees funeral affairs, quoted by French 24.

Paris’s burial lottery plots cost and how to enter

Each existing tomb will be available to buy for €4,000 ($4,600), with winners also responsible for restoration costs. They will then have the option to purchase a lease, starting at €976 ($1,120) for a 10-year contract and going up to €17,668 ($20,290) for a perpetual right to rest there.

Applications to the Paris burial place lottery opened on Monday, November 3, and will remain open until December 31, according to CNN Travel, who cited city hall while reporting. Each entrant must also pay a €125 ($144) registration fee.

Trail run for Paris’s burial lottery scheme

If a winner fails to meet restoration or purchase conditions, “the sale of the monument is cancelled and the buyer loses their investment,” authorities warned.

Simondon described the draw as a “trial run” that may be extended, noting that reusing plots also has “an ecological interest.”