A map from the Observatory of Christianophobia, which has recorded various anti-Christian acts since 2016, was shared with an incorrect caption, suggesting that it only concerns churches that have been burned or vandalized.
Question asked by Christelle on 04/20/2019
Bonjour,
You asked us on Twitter to determine the origin of a card, which you found on the Internet, presented as “the map of churches burned in France over the last four years.”
It has also been presented by others as the map of churches vandalized or destroyed in 2018.
The map you are submitting to us is a map created and regularly updated by the Observatory of Christianophobia. This organization notes on its website that it “has been proposing, since May 2010, to list acts of Christianophobia in France and around the world. It belongs to the Catholic Riposte network”.
The observatory’s publication director is Guillaume de Thieulloy and its editor-in-chief is Daniel Hamiche. These two men are conservative Catholic activists who are at the head of several sites supposedly “reinformation” of the “cathosphere”such as the Salon beige, News from France or the 4 Truths. Guillaume de Thieullloy is also known for being the publisher of Memoirs by Jean-Marie Le Pen.
A map of Christianophobic acts held by Catholic activists
On its website, the Observatory of Christianophobia maintains a “map of Christianophobic acts”, which lists, mainly in France, arson, murders or assaults, acts of vandalism, thefts, attacks and kidnappings targeting Christians. It is therefore not only a question of fires as claimed in the tweet sent in Spanish, or of churches vandalized or destroyed. The site does not allow to filter the acts by category, but it offers monthly maps from December 2016 to December 2018. The map does not appear to have been updated since.
To establish this map, the site calls on its readers, invited via a form to report acts targeting Christians, by providing as much information as possible. As a result, the work of the Observatory is very well documented since for each point indicated on the map, there is a link to a description of the act reported, itself sourced by a press article, often local. The points are added according to the assessment of the observatory. Thus, the desire of a communist mayor to remove the cross from a cemetery appears alongside the recurring thefts of santons, attacks on priests or acts of vandalism.
Since your request was about fires, CheckNews focused on pictograms showing flames. We were able to see that for the year 2018, the Observatory of Christianophobia counted 26 fires or attempted fires that took place inside or near churches. In two cases, it was less assertive about the criminal nature of the attempted fires, noting that it was “quite likely” for one and admitted for the other that it was ultimately accidental.
According to the official count published in February, and processed by CheckNews, the Ministry of the Interior recorded “1 063 events” anti-Christians in 2018. At the end of March, The Figaro revealed a report from the gendarmerie reporting 877 acts of vandalism and 129 thefts targeting Catholic places of worship in 2018.
