{"id":136874,"date":"2025-05-27T21:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T21:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/136874\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T21:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T21:05:12","slug":"france-is-seeing-a-rise-in-anti-christian-sentiment-and-violence-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/136874\/","title":{"rendered":"France is seeing a rise in anti-Christian sentiment and violence \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Anti-Christian violence is rising across Europe, particularly in France.<\/li>\n<li>Right-wing parties are responding, using Christian fears as a way to catalyze their voter base.<\/li>\n<li>Anti-immigrant sentiment is also on the rise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Throughout the last few weeks, French churchgoers and leaders from Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim denominations have noted an increase in frequency and intensity of anti-religious sentiment and violence, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/france-seeing-rise-in-church-attacks.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/france-seeing-rise-in-church-attacks.html\">The Christian Post<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In particular, anti-Christian hate crimes are rising at greater rates than before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">On recent occasions, small mobs, comprised mainly of young men, have robbed and vandalized churches, synagogues and mosques. <a href=\"https:\/\/thecatholicherald.com\/desecrations-threats-and-silence-anti-christian-violence-grips-france\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/thecatholicherald.com\/desecrations-threats-and-silence-anti-christian-violence-grips-france\/\">A tabernacle was broken open and a eucharist stolen<\/a> from a church in Saint-Aygulf. Vandals defaced a Christian church and cemetery in Clermont d\u2019Excidueil <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/islamist-defacing-of-christian-sites-shocks-french-villagers.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/islamist-defacing-of-christian-sites-shocks-french-villagers.html\">with Muslim slogans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Some pastors have reported that the attacks have not been personally directed toward members of the congregations. Rather, they have been directed at the faith itself. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.europe1.fr\/societe\/info-europe-1-les-incendies-criminels-deglises-en-hausse-de-30-lannee-derniere-278087\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.europe1.fr\/societe\/info-europe-1-les-incendies-criminels-deglises-en-hausse-de-30-lannee-derniere-278087\">Christianity constituted 31% of religiously-motivated offenses in France in 2024<\/a>; antisemitic attacks made up 62% and anti-Islamic attacks made up 7%.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50;background-color:#F3F1F0;cursor:pointer\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/RP673DHODBAJXBTOIRBBOEU4SI.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>Police officers check men at the entrance of the Gambetta high school, Monday, Oct. 16, 2023 in Arras, northern France. French President Emmanuel Macron was holding Monday a special security meeting amid heightened alert against feared terror threats, as a high school where a teacher was fatally stabbed in an attack last week has been evacuated over a bomb alert. | Michel Spingler, Associated Press <img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.67;background-color:#F3F1F0;cursor:pointer\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/25TSDZ6IEBEB3J547KUDQM2KFI.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"480\"\/>French police officers from the forensic service stand in front of the Gambetta high school in Arras, northeastern France, after a man armed with a knife killed a teacher and wounded another teacher and a security guard, an attack being investigated as potential terrorism, Friday Oct. 13, 2023. | Ludovic Marin, Associated Press About half of 2024\u2019s Christian hate crimes in Europe took place in France<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A European watchdog group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu\/fileadmin\/user_upload\/publications\/files\/OIDAC_Report_2024_-_Online_Version.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu\/fileadmin\/user_upload\/publications\/files\/OIDAC_Report_2024_-_Online_Version.pdf\">documented nearly 2,500 instances of hate crimes<\/a> against European Christians in 2024, with about 1,000 of those attacks occurring in France. Attacks included instances of discrimination, individual assaults, bomb threats, arson and more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The United Kingdom followed closely behind France, with 702 anti-Christian hate crimes reported, and Germany at 277. Each country noted a dramatic increase in the rate of such crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anti-Christian violence is rising across Europe, particularly in France. Right-wing parties are responding, using Christian fears as a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,29855],"class_list":{"0":"post-136874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-news-feed-national"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114581833237851295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}