Former schoolteacher Chantal Sebire (above), 52, suffered from a rare and incurable tumour in her nasal cavity which severely deformed her face and caused her to lose her sense of smell, taste and finally her eyesight.

Her body was found last Wednesday at her home in Plombieres-les-Dijon, two days after the high court decided that the law did not allow her doctor to prescribe lethal drugs for her.

A post-mortem revealed 'no specific cause that can explain' her death, said the prosecutor in Dijon, Mr Jean-Pierre Alacchi.

Toxicological tests were being done to determine 'if someone helped her end her life', he said.

Ms Sebire's lawyer, Mr Gilles Antonowicz, reacted angrily, calling the decision to carry out an autopsy 'grotesque' as no offence had been committed, while her doctor Emmanuel Debost said it was unnecessary.

In her request to the court, Ms Sebire had said she did not want to endure further pain and subject herself to an irreversible worsening of her condition, called an esthesioneuroblastoma.

AFP