Man shoots himself dead in Notre Dame de Paris

[microrobert]

Man shoots himself dead in Notre Dame de Paris

A man has shot himself dead inside the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris in the French capital, police say.

An initial investigation found that the man had killed himself in front of the main altar shortly after 16:00 local time (14:00 GMT).

Local media reports said he was a 78-year-old writer and essayist.

The cathedral was reportedly evacuated calmly after the shooting, but the exact number of people who were inside at the time was unknown.

The French news website Europe 1 reported the police had found a letter beside the body of the dead man.

It identified him as Dominique Venner, a former member of the Secret Army Organisation (OAS), which opposed Algerian independence in the early 1960s.

Europe 1 also said he had been close to the campaign against the government's recent decision to legalise same-sex marriage. President Francois Hollande signed the bill into law on Saturday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22614994

[Mason8]

bad news

[Germaniac]

R.I.P Monsieur Venner

[Hurrem sultana]

hmm wonder what made him do that :/

[Germaniac]

Gay marriage, non white immigration, destruction of European values a d so on.

[Hurrem sultana]

Gay marriage, non white immigration, destruction of European values a d so on.

lol,hmm,sure i dont like that,but i wont take my life for it

[Ouistreham]

I was fortunate to meet him privately a couple of times those past years.

All his life, he'd done what he thought was his duty

He was ill, he was getting very old, he did what he thought was the right thing to do.

[sido]

rest in peace

[Baluarte]

France’s Le Pen hails far-right Notre Dame suicide

French National Front leader Marine le Pen has saluted the acts of a far-right activist who shot himself dead at Notre Dame. The man had earlier called on his blog for "spectacular action" to protect France's identity.

Witnesses said that the man had placed a letter on the altar of the church before shooting himself in the head just after 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

The suicide was hailed as a political gesture by Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front. "All respect to Dominique Venner whose final, eminently political act was to try to wake up the people of France," Le Pen said on Twitter, signing her initials to indicate that she had written the entry personally.

Le Pen's far-right party, running primarily on an anti-immigration platform but which also opposes French government efforts to legalize gay marriage, is the third-most popular in the country.

The man was identified by police as 78-year-old Dominique Venner, a historian known for his far-right publications. A note on Venner's blog, dated May 21st, had strongly criticized a law to allow same-sex marriage that was passed by the Socialist government last week.

Venner - a paratrooper during France's war in Algeria - had written essays, military histories and books about weaponry and hunting.
'Need for gestures'

In the blog piece that saw him rail against the adoption of the gay marriage law, Venner called for words to be followed with deeds. "There will certainly need to be new, spectacular, symbolic gestures to shake off the sleepiness... and re-awaken the memories of our origins," Venner had written.

Police told the agency that the contents of the letter echoed comments posted on Venner's website.
Visitors to the cathedral were cleared from the building after the incident took place. "It's unfortunate, it's dramatic, it's shocking," Monsignor Patrick Jacquin told the AP news agency. "We did not know him, he was not a regular at the cathedral."

Jacquin said that, while a number of people had taken their own lives by jumping from the cathedral's twin towers, he had no knowledge of anyone committing suicide on the altar.

The 850-year-old Gothic cathedral, which lies on an islet on the River Seine, is one of the most visited sites in Paris, attracting 13.6 million visitors in 2011.
rc/msh (AFP, AP,dpa, Reuters)

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[microrobert]

Topless Femen Activist Touts Fake Gun In Notre Dame Cathedral Protest After Dominique Venner's Suicide

A Femen activist has been arrested after carrying out a topless protest in Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral.

With the words “May facists rest in hell”, the woman – referred to on the Femen Facebook page as “the angel of death” was photographed pointing a fake gun into her mouth.

The protest comes a day after far-right activist Dominique Venner committed suicide in the famous cathedral.

A Femen protester stormed Paris's Notre Dame cathedral today

Venner, who campaigned against gay marriage and Islam, shot himself in the mouth on Tuesday and died 20 minutes later, French reports said.

On Wednesday, the Femen Facebook page called on “European Nazis” to “follow the example of the ultra-right Wenner and immediately commit suicide, thereby permanently excluding themselves from the political arena in Europe.”

Topless Femen Activist Touts Fake Gun In Notre Dame Cathedral Protest After Dominique Venner's Suicide