Two French churches, located in Bordeaux and Paris, were attacked within the last week, with the latter witnessing vandals write far-left anarchist slogans on its doors.
On Tuesday, the Church of the Trinity in Bordeaux was discovered to have a minimum of seventeen “impacts” in its windows. There were six steel balls found in the vicinity of the windows, which impacted but did not break the glass.
Father Samuel Volta, vicar general of the diocese of Bordeaux, spoke out about the attack in the newspaper Le Figaro. “In the current context, we were initially very scared and thought of the worst when we heard the news. Finally, it looks more like terrible ‘stupidity’.”
Father Volta further stated that “living together is a bit of a daily challenge” in the area in which the church is located. However, the parish is peaceful, and the Catholic community has not experienced prior conflicts.
In Paris, another church was targeted in the heart of the city, close to the famed Louvre museum. Vandals spray-painted slogans across the exterior doors of the 17th-century Eglise Saint Roch, tagging the church with anarchist symbols, with one slogan reading “Nazis, Frenchs, Pro-Deutch, F*** Off.”
Ariel Weil, the mayor of central Paris, spoke against the attack on the church, linking it to a protest held by sovereigntist and former National Rally (RN) politician Florian Phillipot. “A few days before Christmas, scandalous inscriptions on the Eglise Saint-Roch, no doubt on the sidelines of the demonstration by Philippot's supporters this weekend.
“Complaint was filed at the police station, and cleaning started by the city’s cleanliness teams. Thanks to the officers,” he added.
The attacks are just the latest anti-Christian attacks to take place in France this Christmas season and come after a nativity scene in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, a suburb of Strasbourg, was set on fire in an alleged arson attack last week by two unknown perpetrators.
A few days later, in Lormont, which is a town within the suburbs of the city of Bordeaux, a man was arrested for cutting down a Christmas tree beside the town hall, shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he was committing the crime.
