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French court orders town to remove statue of Virgin Mary

Move follows legal complaint by an association dedicated to the defence of secularity, on the basis that a French law dating back to 1905 forbids religious monuments in public spaces.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

A French court has ordered a small town to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary, saying the religious display violates the separation of church and state, reports RFI.

The statue is located at a crossroads in La Flotte, a municipality of 2,800 inhabitants on the popular holiday island Île de Ré, off France's Atlantic coast.

The statue was erected by a local family after World War II in gratitude for a father and son having returned from the conflict alive.

Its initial home was a private garden, but the family later donated it to the town which set it up at the crossroads in 1983.

In 2020, it was damaged by a passing car, and the local authorities decided to restore the statue and put it back in the same place, but this time on an elevated platform.

Read more of this report from RFI.