a 50-year-old man arrested and hospitalized for “psychiatric disorders”

A 50-year-old man was arrested after acts of vandalism committed in two churches, in Angers (Maine-et-Loire) and in a neighboring town. However, he was hospitalized due to “psychiatric disorders”announced Tuesday, April 18 the prosecution of Angers.

Six days earlier, serious damage had been noted in the Sainte Madeleine church in Angers, with several decapitated statues, broken crosses and the ransacked high altar, according to the mayor of the city, who had lodged a complaint. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, was also moved on Twitter by “inadmissible beheadings of statues”expressing his “support for Catholics in Angevin and France”.

A suspect known to the police

“The investigations carried out by the departmental security of Angers led to the arrest this (Tuesday) morning of a 50-year-old man, identified by the investigators by several concordant elements”, announced on Twitter the public prosecutor of Angers, Eric Bouillard. The man, who probably acted alone, is “known to the police and judicial authorities”, said the prosecutor. He will be heard on the facts “as soon as his medical care is finished”. Two statues of Christ stolen from the church of Trélazé have been recovered and returned to the religious authorities, added the prosecutor.