“Long live Islam and peace”. These inscriptions spray-painted on the wall of a church in the commune of Lieusaint (Seine-et-Marne) were a nasty surprise discovered by parishioners on Thursday May 4. In addition, a Star of David, Arabic inscriptions were painted with black paint on the fence of the building, reports the weekly La République de Seine-et-Marne.
The mayor of the commune, Michel Bisson, lamented on the social network Facebook an “inadmissible, unacceptable and condemnable gesture”. He added: “Like all Lieusaintais residents, I am outraged by such acts, and I have to consider our fellow Catholics”. The municipality told CNews that it had filed a complaint and immediately started cleaning the wall of the building. An investigation has been launched.
In addition, Michel Bisson announced that he would closely follow the “progress of the investigation” which could eventually lead to identifying the perpetrators of this act. In this context, the municipality stressed that “the video protection system controlled by [the] municipal surveillance centre will be invaluable to the police in their investigations”.
The Amicale des musulmans, which runs the Lieusaint Grand Mosque, condemned the act of vandalism “in the strongest terms” and expressed its “total outrage”, according to the mayor of the municipality. Nevertheless, the Grand Mosque of Lieusaint told CNews that it was sceptical that these inscriptions could have been committed by Muslims.
This is not the first time this church has been vandalised, the parish priest pointed out. Several statues had been damaged and knocked over, but the police had not been able to arrest the perpetrators.