Mourners arriving at the church of Saint-Ferréol-les-Bruyères on Saturday for the funeral of local retired locksmith Mr Gérard Vasseur were handed an order of service listing two eulogies. The first was delivered by the deceased's son, Mr Bruno Vasseur. The second, delivered from the lectern immediately afterwards, was an analysis of the first.

The analyst, Mr Julien Labarre, is a communications consultant based in the regional capital. He was engaged by the family after the younger Vasseur expressed concern that his eulogy, drafted over three evenings, might not land as intended with a mixed audience of relatives, neighbours and the choir.

Mr Labarre's assessment lasted forty minutes. He opened by praising the eulogy's "clean narrative arc", noting that the anecdote about the locked car keys near Liège "did significant emotional work at comparatively low word cost". He then identified what he called a structural weakness in the final third, where, in his words, "the grief payload arrives before the tonal pivot, leaving the conclusion with nothing to resolve."

The request

Attendants stationed at the church doors asked arriving mourners to remain in their pews for the full session and to refrain from weeping, embracing or departing until the analysis was complete, on the grounds that audible grief during the assessment would interfere with the room's acoustic baseline.

A niece of the deceased, Ms Océane Vasseur, said she had begun crying during the first eulogy and was asked by an attendant to "hold the rest of it in" until Mr Labarre had finished. She said she had managed this by thinking about her tax return.

"The analysis is part of the send-off now," said the parish's verger, Mr Alain Thomassin. "In the old days you got one eulogy and whatever it gave you. Now you get one eulogy and you find out how it was built. People expect that."

What happens next

Mr Labarre confirmed that he had recorded the session and intended to publish it as an episode of his podcast, in which he and two other consultants analyse eulogies delivered at funerals in the surrounding canton. He said the Vasseur eulogy had provided "strong material", and that the podcast episode analysing the podcast episode about it was already planned for the following week.

The family has asked that flowers be sent to the church rather than the crematorium, as the second arrangement will be needed for the recording.