Let’s see. He smashed the statues, trampled on the Eucharistic hosts, and was muttering about heaven and hell. Yes, clearly this has nothing to do with Islam’s abhorrence of images and contempt for Christianity!
“France: Muslim smashes up historic church, media dismisses it as person with ‘mental problems,'” Diversity Macht Frei, August 6, 2014:
On Tuesday 5 August at Thonon-les-Bains, shortly before 8 am, a man of about 30, in only a few minutes, committed major acts of vandalisme in the church of Saint-Hippolyte and in the adjacent basilica of Saint-François-de-Sales: with exceptional force, the person overturned and broke two altars, the candelabras and lecterns, destroyed statues, tore down a tabernacle, twisted a massive bronze cross, smashed in a sacristy door and even broke some stained-glass windows.
According to the priest Le Tué, it was a “young Muslim”, but the hypothesis of a religious motivation still has to be confirmed.
… according to the Thonon priest “there is desecration but also sacrilege, since the Eucharist (hosts)* were trampled on.”
Source: lemessager.fr Via: EuroJihad
* These are wafers that Catholics eat during the Mass ceremony; they signify the body of Christ.
I looked at quite a few news reports of this incident. This is the only one I could find that includes the quote about the perpetrator being a Muslim. One other mentions that he was “of Tunisian origin” and says “he was talking about heaven and hell”. All the other reports, and the police themselves, simply describe him as a “mentally unbalanced individual”.
More photos here.