“Removing the Madonna Statue”: A War Against Religious Symbols in France

cancel culture In a secular sauce. The battle of the Jacobin societies against the religious symbols continues in France. Administrative Appeal Court Bordeaux The municipality of La Flotte-en-Ré, in the Île-de-Ré, has ordered the removal from the public domain of a statue of the Virgin located in the middle of a crossroads, under the 1905 law on the separation of church and state, according to a spread by French press As mentioned before Le Figaro. In confirmation of a first decision of the Administrative Court of Poitiers, dating back to March, a small town of Charente-Maritime with a population of 2,800 was ordered.Remove the statue within six monthsThe latter was built after World War II for a family grateful to see a father and son return alive from the conflict. It was first displayed in a private garden, then donated to the municipality, which erected it in 1983 at the Crossroads.

France, war on religious symbols

In the spring of 2020, the statue was damaged in a car accident. Then the municipality decided to rebuild it in the same way, in the same area, on a bump, in a public place. Following this decision, Libre-pensée 17, an association for the defense of secularism, initiated legal proceedings to request its removal, invoking a 1905 law banning the erection of religious monuments on public property. a”Silly controversy“He called her mayor Jean Paul Herodotuswho claimed that the statue wasPart of the historical heritage“From a small town, being”More a memorial than a religious statue“.” The court points out that the municipality “He had no intention of expressing a religious preference“Install the statue there in 2020. However, he also points out that”The figure of the Virgin Mary is an important figure in Christianity and especially in the Catholic religion, and the statue itself has a religious character.”, as he points out to the Administrative Court of Bordeaux. It must therefore be removed.

Identity struggle

The Bordeaux court’s decision is controversial. “The Bordeaux Court of Appeal has ordered the municipality of La Flotte-en-Ré to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary from public spaces. Once again, the judges are accomplices of Gauche associations that want to destroy the Christian roots of France. Shame!Tweeted the representative of the National Assembly Nicola Maisonette. “to Bordeaux, the court ordered the municipality of La Flotte-en-Ré to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary from public domain. Of course we will oppose!he tweeted Stanislas Rigolt, President of Generation Z. The story is very similar to the similar clash that arose around the statue of Saint-Michel (“Saint Michael and the Dragon”) that opened in October 2018 in the square in front of the communal church of Saint-Michel of Les Sables-d’Olonne, in the Vendée in western France.

In December 2021, the Libre Pensée was acquired by the Administrative Court of Nantes Approving the demolition of the Saint Michel statue within six months. The justices, also on that occasion, agreed with the Assembly on the basis of the 1905 Act on Relations between Church and State which “He opposes placing a sign or slogan, in public, that expresses acknowledgment of a denomination or indicates a religious preferenceAs indicated in the judgment. On September 16, the Court of Appeal of Nantes upheld the judgment of the court, giving the mayor six months to remove the monument. Demonstrations and processions of thousands of people who opposed this absurd decision, caused by the citizens of Les Sables-d’ Olonne are by no means a whim: the battle – summer time – assumes rather a clash-on toneFrench identity. Which is based on the secularism of the state, but without abandoning the traditions and symbols of its own Christian history, as the secular “Taliban” wants.