A dismantling ordered according to the principles of the law of 1905 on the separation of Church and State. The administrative court of Poitiers ordered this Thursday to the municipality of La Flotte-en-Ré, on the Ile de Ré (Charente-Maritime), the removal from the public domain of a statue of the Virgin located in the middle of a crossroad.
This municipality has six months to “proceed with the removal of the statue of the Virgin Mary from the municipal public domain” according to the judgment, in accordance with the conclusions of the public rapporteur.
Made in 1945 for a family returning from the war
The association La Libre Pensée 17 had taken legal action to claim this withdrawal, asking for the application of the law of 1905 which prohibits the installation of religious monuments on the public domain.
An appeal born of a banal accident: in the spring of 2020, the statue had been damaged after being hit by a motorist. The municipality then decided to rebuild it identically, in the same location.
The statue was made in 1945 for a family, after a father and son returned from World War II. First exhibited in a private garden, it was then donated to the municipality, which installed it in 1983.
“Bad trial”
At the hearing, the municipality maintained that the statue was “not solely and totally religious in character”. “The population is unanimous in considering that the statue is part of a historical heritage, in the same way as a statue of a king or Napoleon”, underlined this Thursday with the mayor Jean-Paul Héraudeau. But the court ruled: it is indeed “a mainly religious symbol”.
The affair caused a stir among the 2,800 inhabitants and provoked the arrival of MEP LR François-Xavier Bellamy in mid-February. “We received thousands of calls and letters of support, even from abroad”, assured Jean-Paul Héraudeau, denouncing this “bad trial”. The decision on a possible appeal will be discussed in the municipal council on March 17.
“The courts confirm that it is necessary to respect the convictions of all citizens, and not to satisfy a few”, reacted the association La Libre Pensée 17 in a press release, judging “unacceptable that elected officials (… ) still confuse commune and parish”.