In France, a Christian church is destroyed every 15 days – study

Nave of the Abbey of Saint-Ouen in Rouen, Normandy, France. | Jorge Láscar via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

In December 2025, France published the findings of a study by the Observatory of Religious Heritage (OPR), according to which one religious building disappears in the country every two weeks: churches are destroyed due to arson, collapses, vandalism, and planned demolitions. Two-thirds of fires show signs of deliberate arson, indicating the systemic nature of the problem.

According to the OPR president, the alarming situation became especially evident after the fire at the 16th-century Church of Saint-Pierre in Normandy, which occurred exactly two years after the catastrophe at Notre-Dame Cathedral. He notes that the disappearance of churches is linked to demolitions, fires, collapses, and acts of vandalism, stressing that criminal factors continue to play a dominant role.

Although the statistics include buildings belonging to all religious communities, the main blow falls on Catholic sites – there are about 45,000 of them in France. At the same time, according to Lamaze, every 15 days a new mosque is built in the country, while one Christian church disappears, a trend he calls “a turning point” for the nation’s religious landscape.

According to French criminal intelligence data, in 2018 alone, 877 attacks on Catholic places of worship were recorded. Over the past decade, the number of vandalism incidents has increased fivefold, and around 5,000 churches are now at risk of disappearing. Experts say that municipalities – the legal owners of religious buildings under the 1905 law – often lack the means for their repair and protection, which accelerates the destruction of the nation’s religious heritage.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that a 19th-century church was set on fire in France.

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