Moroccan Expat’s Death Sparks Legal Battle for Posthumous Marriage in France

Diagnosed with a double cancer in 2019, Mustapha, a trained electrician, had decided to marry Henriette the following year, in order to protect her from need. He had initiated the administrative procedures, but the health crisis related to Covid-19 slowed down the momentum of this couple from Saint-Laurent-du-Var. "The medical treatment was very heavy. He was very tired, weakened, and could not always travel. Then with the successive lockdowns, we could not go to the Moroccan consulate in Marseille," his fiancée tells Nice-matin. The couple did not receive the certificate of custom that Morocco was supposed to send them and which attested that the future husband was not already married in his country of origin until August 2021, when Mustapha died.

After the death of her fiancé, Henriette is fighting to marry the father of her two children, in order to obtain the "reversion" of her "retirement" and to respect Mustapha’s will. But she is facing enormous difficulties. While in France, posthumous marriage is allowed, this is not the case in Morocco. The 57-year-old woman from Saint-Laurent sent her file to the Ministry of Justice in November 2021. The latter sent her a correspondence in July 2022, to explain to her that the law of the country of her deceased fiancé does not admit posthumous marriage. She has two months - until September 25 - to hire a lawyer and file an appeal. "I am in the process of putting together a file," she says.