The author, arrested by the police, admitted the facts. For the parish priest, the act has no political or religious significance.
During the night of Monday to Tuesday, the Saint-Jean-Baptiste church in Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines) suffered an attempted fire. Yesterday Wednesday, the author was arrested and interned in psychiatry.
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A patrol was dispatched on February 15 at the end of the morning, following the call of a volunteer from the Saint-Jean-Baptiste church, a building built in the 1960s at the same time as its Val-Fourré district. On the spot, degradations were noted, various rubbish having been deliberately set on fire at the bottom of the side door of the church. The parish then filed a complaint.
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The man was arrested yesterday Thursday, while trying to reproduce his package, on a bank this time. Caught in the act, he would then have recognized the facts concerning the Saint-Jean-Baptiste church. He was also reportedly hospitalized, “not in full possession of his facultiesaccording to a police source.
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Anti-Christian act, was it committed by an unbalanced person, or gratuitous degradation? Nearby FigaroFather Williamson, parish priest, believes that “given the circumstances, this week’s fire has no political or religious significance“. And evokes the possible tensions in Mantes-la-Jolie: “the vast majority of the population is Muslimremarks the priest,but that does not prevent dialogue. On the other hand, there are many young people who are a little lost, unstable» he underlines.
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