French Catholic Priest Murdered by Rwandan Migrant Who Set Fire to Nantes Cathedral Last Year

A migrant from Rwanda has turned himself in after murdering a Catholic priest in France.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted the news Monday morning: “All my support for the Catholics of our country after the tragic murder of a priest in Vendée. I’m heading to the scene.”

The suspect, a Rwandan refugee, is the same man who confessed to setting a fire in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul of Nantes just last year, which “severely damaged” much of its interior. The refugee had been released under judicial control and “without charge” last July.

France 24 reports that the priest he murdered, Olivier Maire, had been housing him on church grounds “for several months.”

French nationalist Marine Le Pen, who will face off against President Emmanuel Macron next year, reacted to the story by tweeting that “in France you can be an illegal migrant, burn the Cathedral of Nantes, never be expelled, and reoffend by murdering a priest.”

“What’s happening in our country is unprecedented in its gravity. It represents the complete failure of the State and Interior Minister Darmanin,” she added.

Last October Big League Politics reported on the shooting of a Greek Orthodox priest in Lyon just days after a Tunisian Muslim stabbed and killed three at a church in Nice.

Our Latest Articles