The statue on the island of Île de Ré has been erected as a thank you for the fact that two local people survived the Second World War.
In France, the court has ordered a small municipality to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary in its downtown area, because it violates society’s lack of recognition.
The court decision concerns the statue of the municipality of La Flotte on the island of Île de Ré, located on the west coast of France.
France is secularist, which means that religious and public bodies are separated there, and no religion can have a special status.
Since 1905, the law has prohibited, for example, the erection of religious monuments in public places.
The La Flotte statue was originally erected by a local family in 1945 as a thank you for the father and son returning home alive from World War II. At first, the statue was located in a private garden, but later the family donated it to the municipality.
The municipality placed the statue in 1983 at an intersection in the downtown area. In 2020, the statue was damaged after a car hit it.
20 minutes magazine has published a picture of the statue ordered to be removed on Twitter.
The mayor thinks the incident is ridiculous
The municipality’s decision to renovate the statue and return it to a pedestal to be built on the same site prompted the Fédération nationale de la libre pensée, an association promoting free thought, to take the matter to court.
According to the decision issued by the court in Bordeaux, the municipality now has six months to remove the statue of the Virgin Mary.
Mayor Jean-Paul Héraudeau finds the whole discussion about the statue ridiculous. According to him, it is more of a memorial than a religious statue and part of the locality’s historical heritage.
According to the court’s view, the Virgin Mary is such a central figure in Christianity that the statue depicting her is inevitably religious, even if the municipal officials did not think so.
The statue dispute has been covered in the news, among other things Le Figaro magazine (you switch to another service) and 20 minutes magazine (you switch to another service).
Source: AFP