On Ecne, installing xfce4 desktop fails with dpkg errors, makes apt stop working

Attempting to install xfce4 on my Ecne system results in a failed attempt to remove trisquel-desktop-common-data, which creates errors, making apt stop working correctly.

Removing trisquel-desktop-common-data (12.0-5) ...
dpkg: error processing package trisquel-desktop-common-data (--remove):
installed trisquel-desktop-common-data package post-removal script subprocess returned error exit status 1
dpkg: too many errors, stopping
Errors were encountered while processing:
trisquel-desktop-common-data
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

This causes a failure of removing the package trisquel-desktop-common-data, which results in apt being unable to install or remove anything.

To fix this I removed the dpkg files for trisquel-desktop-common-data:
sudo rm -r /var/lib/dpkg/info/trisquel-desktop-common-data.*

Then used aptitude to finish removing the package:
sudo aptitude remove trisquel-desktop-common-data

Then reinstalled the package:
sudo apt install trisquel-desktop-common-data

But any further attempts to install xfce4 results in the same failed removal of trisquel-desktop-common-data and the same dpkg errors, hanging up apt.