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| - Fact Check: 2020 church fire FALSELY linked to violent protests in France
The 15th-century Gothic cathedral in Nantes, France, was set on fire in July 2020. The court sentenced a 42-year-old Rwandan immigrant for arson earlier in 2023.
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India Today Fact Check
This is a three-year-old incident that took place in Nantes, France, in 2020. It had nothing to do with the recent spate of violent protests.
The unrest and violent protests triggered by the police shooting of a teenager in Paris seemed to be easing, but the tension remains high. The protests became a lightning rod for misinformation on social media. The latest one making the rounds is a video of a church ravaged by fire.
Per a July 4 tweet, “A cathedral which stood bombardments during both world wars and was standing tall since several hundred years until yesterday was burnt down by peaceful community of illegal immigrants who came to France seeking asylum and now doing all loot, arson and Jihad.”
India Today found that while the viral video is from France, it is about three years old and therefore has nothing to do with the recent spate of violent protests.
Our Probe
A reverse search of keyframes from the viral video led us to a July 2020 report that contained an extended version of the viral video. According to it, the incident took place in Nantes, France. It noted that the 15th-Century Gothic cathedral of Saint Pierre and Saint Paul was set on fire.
Per other reports, the police treated the incident as a case of arson as the fire started in three different places. A 39-year-old church volunteer and Rwandan national named Emmanuel Abayisenga was arrested on suspicion but was later released under judicial supervision.
A year later, while awaiting trial for arson, Abayisenga turned himself in and confessed to killing a Roman Catholic priest, whose body was discovered later by the police. Abayisenga, a failed asylum seeker from Rwanda, was facing deportation from France when the cathedral was set on fire.
Earlier in 2023, he was sentenced to a four-year term for arson case. The court reasoned that Abayisenga was not mentally sound at the time of the fire at the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
Thus, it is clear that this incident is not recent at all.
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