This month France has been severely rattled by what some are <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://www.valeursactuelles.com/societe/christianophobie-la-semaine-noire">calling</a> </mark><em>Christianophobie </em>that has swept over the country.
In the Brittany city of Rennes, the church of Saint Jean Marie Vianney was desecrated, and in Normandy the parish hall of a church was vandalised. A similar fate befell the parish hall of the Saint-Laurent church in Maurepas, south of Paris, while in the middle of the French capital a man carrying a knife <a href="https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/paris-a-quelques-minutes-de-la-messe-un-homme-sintroduit-avec-deux-couteaux-dans-leglise-saint-ambroise-13-05-2025-PRFSNY6OWZGZVGZCBVHJ2YCQDU.php"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">entered Saint-Ambroise church</mark></a> just before Mass. Police were swiftly on the scene and no one was hurt in the incident.
In the south of France, a church in Saint-Aygulf was targeted on the night of May 4/5. The tabernacle was ripped off and the Eucharist removed. In a <a href="a%20https:/frejustoulon.fr/mgr-touvet-denonce-la-profanation-de-leglise-de-saint-aygulf/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">statement</mark></a>, Monseigneur François Touvet of the local diocese, said: “For Christians, this act is a sign of a desire to desecrate what is most dear to Catholic Christians.”
The most disturbing incident <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="occurred%20https:/www.laprovence.com/article/faits-divers-justice/1138040861699815/on-va-bruler-ton-eglise-a-avignon-le-pretre-de-montfavet-menace-apres-la-messe-de-nuit">occurred</a> </mark>last weekend at Avignon, 120 miles west of Saint-Aygulf, at the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Repos. Shortly after Father Laurent Milan had conducted evening Mass, he was confronted by “around ten teenagers or young adults asking if they could enter the church”. They said they were Muslims who wanted to visit a church.
Father Milan welcomed the youths into the church whereupon the trouble started. One of several parishioners who witnessed the disorder told reporters that “one of them started running around, others gathered around the priest, shouting insults”.
The invective was against Jesus and the Catholic religion, and Father Milan was warned: “We're going to come back and burn down your church.” The mob departed with a cry of “Allah akbar!”
The <a href="https://www.laprovence.com/article/faits-divers-justice/1138040861699815/on-va-bruler-ton-eglise-a-avignon-le-pretre-de-montfavet-menace-apres-la-messe-de-nuit"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">threat should not be taken lightly</mark></a>. Incidences of arson on Christian places of worship rose by 30 per cent in 2024, up from 38 incidences in 2023 to 50. Some of these occurred in the French Overseas Territory of New Caledonia in the Pacific, which experienced several weeks of civil unrest in the spring of 2024, but the majority were on mainland France.
In response to the confrontation in Avignon, the city’s archbishop, François Fonlupt, <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://www.frontieresmedia.fr/societe/jesus-on-tenc-allah-akbar-des-jeunes-insultent-un-pretre-et-menacent-de-bruler-son-e">lamented</a> </mark>the “lack of respect” and linked it to the “poverty” of the neighbourhood. Some have argued this is a disingenuous analysis, and that poverty should be no excuse for such behaviour.
The archbishop also warned against any “media hype” that might enflame tensions. He needn’t worry. The French media have a tendency to ignore the growing number of anti-Christian acts. Two priests were assaulted<mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"> <a href="https://www.cnews.fr/france/2025-04-20/paques-deux-pretres-agresses-pendant-les-offices-du-vendredi-saint-en-normandie">in separate incidents at Easter</a></mark> but neither received much coverage outside the conservative media.
An intelligence report <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://www.europe1.fr/societe/info-europe-1-les-incendies-criminels-deglises-en-hausse-de-30-lannee-derniere-278087">revealed</a> </mark>that in 2024, acts categorised as anti-Christian accounted for 31 per cent of religious-motivated violations in France. This rose to 62 per cent for anti-Semitic incidents and dropped to 7 per cent for anti-Muslim acts.
However, there was a heinous crime committed against a Muslim last month at a Mosque near Nimes on the Mediterranean coast. A 20-year-old of Bosnian extraction <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/france/20250502-french-mosque-murder-suspect-acted-without-ideological-motive-prosecutor-says"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">fatally stabbed a young man as he prayed</mark></a>, filming the dying man’s last moments while insulting Allah.
President Emmanuel Macron <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://www.france24.com/en/france/20250427-france-is-no-place-for-racism-and-hate-says-macron-after-murder-of-muslim-in-mosque">responded</a> </mark>to the murder by declaring that: "Racism and hatred based on religion can have no place in France. Freedom of worship cannot be violated.”
The reality is that for years people in France have been killed because of their religion. An Islamist shot dead three Jewish children in 2012, and in 2016 Father Jacques Hamel was murdered in his church by two youths inspired by the Islamic State.
There have been other murders of Jews, and in 2020 three worshippers were killed by a Tunisian migrant outside a church in Nice.
This is one reason why the overwhelming majority of French people <a href="https://www.europe1.fr/politique/sondage-77-des-francais-veulent-voir-le-retablissement-des-controles-aux-frontieres-4267272"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">want their borders better controlled</mark></a>. Under Macron, legal and illegal immigration has reached unprecedented levels and most of the arrivals are from North and Sub-Saharan Africa.
A <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://www.marianne.net/societe/education/selon-lifop-65-des-lyceens-musulmans-placent-lislam-au-dessus-des-lois-de-la-republique">survey</a> </mark>in 2021 found that 65 per cent of Muslim secondary school pupils in France attached more importance to Islamic law than to Republican law. This does not bode well for the future.
Political leaders like to sing the praises of “integration” but in France, as in Britain, a sizeable number of immigrants have no wish to integrate. In France the fear is that religious tension will increase in the coming years, and the appalling incidents of recent weeks will become commonplace.
<a href="https://thecatholicherald.com/brutal-murder-of-19-year-old-catholic-woman-has-exposed-fault-lines-between-new-france-and-old-france/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><strong><em>RELATED: Brutal murder of 19-year-old woman has exposed clash between ‘New France’ and Catholic conservative ‘Old France’</em></strong></mark></a>
<em>Photo: A representation of the crucified Christ in front of Notre Dame des Doms Cathedral in Avginon, France, 27 April 2025. (Photo by NICOLAS GUYONNET/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images.)</em>
