A municipality on an island in western France received a court order on Thursday to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary in the name of the principle of secularism.
Administrative justice gave La Flotte-en-Ré, on the Ile de Ré, six months to remove the statue from the crossroads where it is located.
A local association had taken the matter to court, asking for the application of the 1905 French law that prohibits the installation of religious monuments in public space.
The statue, which had been on display in a private garden for a long time, was given to the municipality in 1983.
After a traffic accident in 2020 that damaged it, the municipality decided to rebuild it identically at the intersection, considering that it was “part of a historical heritage”, explained Mayor Jean-Paul Héraudeau.
But according to the court, it constitutes “a mainly religious symbol”.
Cases of nativity scenes installed in city halls or religious statues in public spaces regularly make headlines in France, where secularism is a sensitive issue that produces heated debates. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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