A gang of Islamist youths in France shouting the jihadist slogan “Allah Akbar [God is greater]” this month threatened a Catholic priest and vowed to burn down his church building before fleeing.
Some of the youths reportedly wore hoods as they threatened the Rev. Laurent Milan at 7:50 p.m. on May 10 inside the Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Repose (Paroisse Notre Dame de Bon Repos) in Place de L’Eglise, parish of Montfavet, on the outskirts of Avignon.
Milan subsequently filed a complaint with local police, and the suspects were “on the run,” Valuers Actuellesreported on May 11. Police officers provided security for the 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Mass services that day.
The youths had first contacted the priest and asked if they could meet him at the church site, claiming they wanted to become Christians. A 15-year-old boy drew the priest aside after the church’s late service, reportedly asking “to be converted” before his accomplices joined him.
“Behind him stood a dozen teenagers or young adults, and they asked if they could enter the church,” Rev. Milan told La Provence. “Some claimed to be Muslims and said they just wanted to visit.”
Once inside the building, however, the youths reportedly hurled foul language at the priest and, shouting in Arabic “Allah Akbar,” vowed to set the church building alight before fleeing. Ages 15 to 17, they wore balaclavas, preventing CCTV footage to help in identifying them, a police source reportedly said.
An eyewitness also confirmed to La Provencethat the gang surrounded the priest, cursing him, and one of them ran around inside the church building.
“They didn’t insult me personally, it was provocation and insulting words, like ‘Jesus, we’re [expletive deleted] you,’ against the Catholic religion,” Milan toldLa Provence, recalling the gang shouting “Allah Akbar” several times and vowing, “We’re going to come back to burn your church.”
Previously young people reportedly had disrupted a meeting in the parish house, shouting and hitting windows from outside the property, reported La Provence.
“We had a computer stolen from the church, candles,” Milan also told the regional newspaper. “It happens that some people come to have their ball thrown voluntarily against the wall of the church in the middle of Mass.”
Milan had begun serving as parish priest for the church only since Sept. 28 before the incident.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a renowned Jewish human right organization, has previously expressed concern that the city of Avignon could be a focus for radical Islam.
A report last year showed nearly 1,000 hate crimes against followers of Christ in France in 2023, according to an official from the French Ministry of Interior. On March 20, 2024, France’s Ministry of the Interior and Overseas published statistics showing that racist, xenophobic or anti-religious crimes and offenses increased by 32 percent in 2023. The publication did not specify how many of those were anti-Christian hate crimes.
Camille Chaize, a spokeswoman for the ministry, confirmed almost 1,000 known anti-Christian hate crimes an interview with French Christian radio station fcr.fr. Responding to a question from the radio host about incidents affecting Christians, she said 90 percent of them targeted properties such as church buildings and cemeteries. The remaining 10 percent involved attacks on 84 Christians, according to Chaize, although it was not clear if the assaults were verbal or physical.
The Ministry of the Interior, which issued the original report that Chaize cited, stated that, as in previous years, “the majority of these crimes and offenses as well as these fines, recorded by the security services, are insults, provocations or defamation (61 percent of offenses and almost all of the fines).”
In total, national police and gendarmerie services recorded 15,000 offenses of an anti-religious, racist or xenophobic nature in 2023. As a result, authorities nationwide mobilized 10,000 security forces for Holy Week at Easter, according to the Observatory for Intolerance and Hatred Against Christians in Europe (OIDACE).
