Nantes cathedral is an excellent example of a Late Gothic French cathedral. It had been going all well and good for the building until one fateful day, the 18th of July 2020:
In the early hours of 18 July 2020, a fire broke out in three parts of the cathedral, one concentrated on the main organ (grand orgue) at the west end, originally built by Jacques Girardet in 1621, which was destroyed, a second near a smaller organ to the left of the altar and the third to the right of the altar.
Basically fire "simultaneously" broke out in three separate parts of the cathedral on that one singular day. Twice can be a coincidence but three times? That's about as smoking (forgive the pun) gun for arson as you can get.
Fortunately the frog police got off their asses and did some investigation. They honed in on a 39 year old "Rwandan undocumented Immigrant" who had been "helping out".
After the fire, a 39-year-old church volunteer, Emmanuel Abayisenga, a Rwandan undocumented immigrant who had lived in France since 2012, was detained for questioning but released without charge.
Fair enough, they couldn't get conclusive evidence so they let him go. It looked like an unfortunate accident, which wasn't all that unexpected given this was a 500 year old structure. Except:
However, he was later re-arrested and confessed to setting the fire; he was charged with arson.
This poor helpless asylum seeker just destroyed a 17th century organ and other stained glass windows too because of his fiery but mostly peaceful actions. Who knows what might have driven him to do this?
His lawyer told a newspaper that his client "bitterly regrets" his actions.
Ah, that justifies everything then...
Presumably given that he had confessed to destroying public property and being a general menace to society he would now be kept locked up until his trail and sentencing. If only frogs had that much sense in them. This gentleman here was released back onto the streets of France and now, with nowhere to go, was taken in by a priest as a gesture of goodwill. How did he repay his gracious host?
On 9 August 2021, Abayisenga allegedly murdered 60-year-old priest Olivier Maire in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, and was again arrested after surrendering himself at a local police station.
Setting fire to a priceless old church and causing damages estimated at close to 40 million Euros is one thing, but killing a human being is quite another. As expected he was arrested again and put on trial for his heinous actions. This time around the French state had had enough, it was going to play hardball https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/03/30/french-court-jails-man-who-set-fire-to-nantes-cathedral_6021174_7.html :
A French court on Wednesday, March 29, handed a four-year jail term to an arsonist for starting a fire that severely damaged a Gothic cathedral in the city of Nantes in 2020.
Absolute frog moment
The court ruled that Abayisenga was not mentally sound at the time of the fire at the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul when it handed down the sentence.
No shit. Oh how low the country of the Sun King has fallen these days...
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Now Notre Dame is just a giant Samsung ad
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That's the Cathedral of Barcelona
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Wait it wasn't photoshop?
Man I thought having our own people steal statues to sell to foreign collectors was humiliating. How the heck do you sell ad space on a historical public religious monument like this lmaoooo.
Seriously how is that real. Don't you have any laws prohibiting stuff like that on heritage buildings?
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Lol there's the urbanhell post I stole the picture from.
I think they sold adspace to pay for renovations or some shit. Still ridiculous though
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@ThankYouDramaVeryCool It's actually the Sagrada Familia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia
Still fricked that there's a giant ad on the facade of a consecrated Basilica even if it's under construction.
Anyone who goes to Europe in the future if the places you visit suck it's worth checking the ownership... Every Catholic Church built before 1905 in France and a large number of other major sites are controlled by their states. !Catholics !historychads
Reconquista 2 electric boogaloo when?
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I thought it was the same one as the beginning of your post but I only looked at the door area and I see now the spires are different
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