Police have arrested an arsonist deemed “ultra-left, Antifa, anti-Christian, pro-ISIS” for allegedly setting fire to a church building, in the latest known attack against Christians in France.
The 39-year-old man is alleged to have set alight the sacristy of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer on Sunday (Sept. 1). Flames reportedly spread to the naves, bell tower and roof, damaging the whole church building.
Some 120 firefighters rushed to the scene and brought the fire under control, evacuating 34 people.
The parish priest entered the burning building to rescue the consecrated hosts used in worship services, according to reports.
Police took the suspect into custody on Monday evening (Sept. 2). He reportedly has been known to police for similar activities and previously tried to set fire to 15 church buildings, resulting in 25 undisclosed convictions.
Anja Hoffmann, executive director of the Vienna, Austria-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe) said the rights group’s research showed France was among the top three European countries for anti-Christian vandalism and arson attacks on churches in recent years.
In most reported cases the perpetrators were either unknown or police showed reluctance to publish “exact motives,” Hoffmann said.
She said an increasing number of perpetrators post messages on social media channels revealing extremist motives such as Islamism. Hoffmann listed incidents known to her since the beginning of this year. Five crosses, two chapels, a church building and more than 50 graves were defaced with slogans such as, “Submit to Allah,” “I will make war on the Christian world” or “France is already Allah’s.”
In July, vandals broke into the Notre-Dame-du-Travail church building in Paris, trashing the building and leaving a trail of Islamic anti-Christian graffiti, including “Submit yourselves to Allah infidels,” and embedding a knife in the throat of a statue of Mary.
Islamist vandals are not the only culprits. Hoffmann said radical left extremists had targeted French church buildings, using leftist anti-Christian slogans. One message, “The only church that illuminates is the one that burns” on the church building of St. Bernadette in Montpellier city, was “particularly worrying in this regard, as it incites direct violence against Christian churches,” she said.
“At the same time, there is a general anti-Christian sentiment in France, stemming from its anti-clerical and radical secularist history, which has gone unchallenged for years,” said Hoffmann. “It should not come as too much of a surprise that these attitudes might at some point translate into violent action.”
Raymond Ibrahim, Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, has chronicled other attacks this year.
On May 28, a Turkish man with a history of mental illness knocked down a large public cross using his van in Loyettes, Ain. He shouted the jihadist slogan, “Allahu Akbar” and performed Muslim prostration prayers at the site.
In April other churches, including another Notre Dame built in the 1600s, went up in flames, Ibrahim said. In May there were also cemetery desecrations, defecations in churches and urinating in baptismal fonts and a bomb threat, he noted.
On April 14, four Muslim teenagers shouted, “Allahu Akbar” after barging into a concert at Saint-Etienne Cathedral in Metz. They fled the scene.
A schizophrenic woman made threats with a knife during a morning Mass at Sainte Bernadette church in La Louvière on March 12. She threatened Catholics at the church the previous week, and was subsequently hospitalized. The same church building became a target for an arson attack when two mopeds were set on fire in the entrance in June 2019, causing 200,000 euros ($222,200 USD) of damage. It is also located near a place where three teenagers in September 2022 attacked two youths, spraying tear gas and calling them “dirty Christians.”
On March 31 in Devèze district, a Muslim woman, 18 at the time of her arrest, faced trial for conspiracy to commit terrorist crimes after planning to attack churchgoers with a sword at Notre-Dame de la Réconciliation, Béziers on Easter.
In the village of Lias, a historic public cross found unseated from its pedestal had been broken into four pieces on March 26. Local Mayor Gérard Paul called the cross “more than a religious representation, it was the soul of our village since it had been enthroned there for decades.”
Police arrested an Egyptian Muslim, 62, after foiling an Islamist plan to bomb the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on March 1. It was the latest terror attack prevented at the site in the previous three weeks and followed the widely reported large fire at the building in 2019.
Ibrahim has accused mainstream media of ignoring the reality of Islamists targeting French churches. In a July report for The stream news site, he referred to a map created in 2018 by L’Observatoire de la Christianophobie (Observatory of Christianophobia), a website documenting hate crimes against Christians in France. The map shows red pins where church buildings had been attacked by 2018.
“As a result, virtually the entire map of France appears covered in red,” observed Ibrahim, “highlighting the ubiquity of church attacks.” He added that churches were definitely under attack throughout France, calling it “an indisputable fact.”
He cited Islam critic Amy Mek, tweeting on X in July 2023 that attacks on churches have become “the norm in France.”
“Two churches a day are vandalized – they are being burned, demolished, and abandoned, and their adherents are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness,” Mek posted. ”Priests are under constant threat and being slaughtered in their places of worship. At what point will France’s open border politicians be held responsible?”
Ibrahim observed, similar to Hoffmann, that along with some church incidents recorded as Islamist-inspired, there were “dozens more in which the assailant’s identity is unknown or unpublished.”
He further noted that France joined Spain, Germany, the U.K. and Sweden in hosting the “most recorded anti-Christian hate crimes,” and that they all have the largest Muslim populations in Europe.
“In short, it would seem that a full-blown jihad has been declared on the churches of France, and its godless leadership is looking the other way when not actively providing cover,” wrote Ibrahim.
OIDAC Europe recorded six arson and attempted arson attacks against church buildings in Germany, Italy, Ireland, Northern Ireland and France between August 25 and Sept. 1. Hoffmann said the issue was certainly not just “a French phenomenon.”
Even so, Hoffmann said Christians could take gospel-centered action against the hate crimes in France and other European countries.
“A Christian response to hatred must always include both justice and mercy. Christians must show mercy, but also learn to speak out against injustice and demand that respect and tolerance be shown also to Christian beliefs,” she said. ”Above all, Christians must overcome the widespread tendency to publicly censor their own beliefs, for the Christian voice is indispensable in public discourse.”
