Orthodox priest shot in a church in the French city of Lyon
Terror and barbarism return to France for religious purposes. This Saturday an Orthodox priest of Greek nationality was shot with a sawn-off shotgun in Lyon, a city in south-east France, at around 4pm (3pm GMT).
The alleged perpetrator fled, a police source told AFP. The attacker acted when the priest "was closing his church," according to various sources and local media, which added that the priest was in a serious condition.
The area where the attack took place was cordoned off by the police, and the priest was evacuated on a stretcher while pointing out that he did not know the attacker, according to the Lyon newspaper Le Progres in its digital edition. The attacker was identified as a man in his forties.
The events took place in a Greek Orthodox temple located in the 7th district of the third city of France, in the district known as Jean Macé.
The attack comes two days after three people had their throats slit in a Catholic basilica in Nice, prompting the French government to tighten security at religious temples on the eve of the Christian feast of All Saints. And it also comes at the height of the controversy over recent positions of radical Islamism in France and the dialectical confrontation between various French and Turkish authorities over debates on freedom of expression and alleged offences against Islam.
The latest escalation of tension comes from the assassination of teacher Samuel Paty by a radical Russian Islamist of Chechen origin who ended his life after the teacher showed images of Mohammed in his secondary school class in a Paris suburb. Subsequently, the demonstrations in favour of freedom of expression and the values of equality, freedom and fraternity of the French Republic were opposed to the belligerence and aggressiveness of radical Islamism, just at a time when the matter was being discussed following the past presentation of the law against Islamist separatism proposed by the French government and President Emmanuel Macron.
The Nice attack and the appearance of new images and comments relating to the figure of the Prophet Mohammed followed in this atmosphere, and representatives of the Islamic world, such as Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spoke out in favour of respecting the figure of the Prophet and even promoted a boycott of Welsh products in response to certain attitudes considered offensive.
Diplomatic confrontation, particularly between the Ottoman and European countries, was fierce and in this tense scenario an alleged attack took place again, this time on the Greek priest of a church in Lyon.
