On Saturday March 9, the inhabitants of Poissy (Yvelines) were astonished and dismayed to discover that the collegiate church of Notre-Dame had been vandalised overnight. The building, whose foundation stones date back to the 11th century, was covered with an anti-Christian tag, as reported by Le Parisien. The graffiti was written in black ink as “Jesus NTM” (” Jesus, Fuck your mother” , ed.) ) before it was removed by city staff.
The Renaissance deputy of the Yvelines department, Karl Olive, preferred not to translate the inscription, which was directed against the Catholic community, but spoke of a “feeling of disgust” at the discovery of the tag. “I obviously came to support Father Matthieu Berger and, with him, the entire Catholic community,” stated the MP on the social network X, while thanking the city council “for their quick reaction”.
For her part, the mayor (LR) of Poissy, Sandrine Dos Santos, expressed her “anger” and “indignation”. “As a mayor who is in favour of good relations between the communities in our town, I fully support the Catholic community against whom this attack is directed,” she said on X. The mayor reacted quickly and contacted a cleaning team to remove the tag “with all necessary precautions” without damaging the stones of the listed building. An investigation was launched to find the perpetrators. “Of course, I immediately asked the police to carry out the usual investigation and check the surveillance cameras so that the perpetrators could be caught quickly,” emphasised Sandrine Dos Santos.
