A woman wearing a mask waits for crossing the street in Paris, France, Dec. 9, 2020. (Xinhua/Gao Jing)

A 58-year-old French woman, who was wrongfully declared dead in a long-running dispute with a former employee, went to court Monday in the city of Lyon to try resurrect her existence.

Reports of Jeanne Pouchain's death have been greatly exaggerated as AFP discovered when it met her at her home in the southeastern town of Saint-Joseph, near Lyon, recently.

Pouchain has been trying to prove she's alive ever since a labor court, allegedly acting on information provided by a former employee of Pouchain's cleaning company, noted her down in November 2017 as dead.

The ruling, which capped a nearly two-decade-long wrongful dismissal suit, turned Pouchain's life upside down. 

Wiped from official records, she lost her ID card, driver's license, bank account and health insurance.

She accused her former employee of fabricating her death to try to win damages from her husband and son after two failed attempts to sue Pouchain herself.

AFP