Far from prying eyes, Parisian authorities have quietly buried in paupers' graves the 57 victims of Franc's killer heatwave this summer who had lain unclaimed for weeks in the city's emergency morgues.
President Jacques Chirac and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe led a small group of officials and civic and religious leaders in a simple burial ceremony closed to the media and dozens of people who came to pay their last respects.
The unclaimed victims were a macabre final touch to the heatwave that claimed an unprecedented 11,435 deaths and embarrassed the country that prides itself on the quality of its health services. About half the victims died in old age homes.
The fact nobody claimed them after several public appeals and publication of their names shocked many French, who saw this reflecting a heartless society that neglects its elderly.
Pensioners were the worst affected by the heat, many struck down by hyperthermia and dehydration as temperatures rocketed above 40° Celsius (104° Fahrenheit).
Several reasons have been cited for the unusually high number of deaths this summer, including air pollution, family absences during vacations and the lack of air conditioning in apartments and retirement homes.