Action française de Vendée, a far-right royalist movement, claimed responsibility for the damage committed to a statue of Simone Veil in La Roche-sur-Yon. The monument was defaced with red paint and covered with a slogan hostile to voluntary termination of pregnancy.
Action française de Vendée, a far-right royalist movement, claimed responsibility on social networks for the damage committed Friday on a statue of Simone Veil in La Roche-sur-Yon, in Vendée, soiled with red paint and covered with a slogan hostile to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion).
In a video accompanying the claim, we can see around ten people filmed from behind placing baby dolls sprinkled with fake blood at the foot of Simone Veil’s statue and then dyeing the water in the fountain red. the statue overlooks. They also put up pieces of cardboard under the bust of Simone Veil stating that “the Constitution is killing our children”.
Macabre scene
The message of demand published on social networks by Action française de Vendée establishes a direct link between this macabre scene and “the ceremony of the inclusion of abortion in the French Constitution” organized the same day in Paris. Simone Veil is famous for having adopted in January 1975 the law decriminalizing abortion in France.
The town hall of La Roche-sur-Yon stressed that it had the damage cleaned up on Friday morning by municipal agents and told AFP that it had immediately filed a complaint with the public prosecutor. The statue of Simone Veil was vandalized with paint in 2019, less than a week after the inauguration of the square bearing her name in La Roche-sur-Yon.