Two 14-year-old teenagers raised the alarm. The 35-year-old detainee, born in the former Yugoslavia, is in police custody for glorifying terrorism less than three weeks before the visit of Leo XIV to the neighboring city of Metz.
The church of Saint-Rémi, right in the center of Forbach (Moselle, northeastern France), experienced an episode last Tuesday, September 8, that has revived concerns about the safety of French priests. Around one in the afternoon, a 35-year-old man appeared in front of the church repeatedly shouting “Allahu Akbar,” entered the building, and asked for the priest, according to a statement released the following day by the Public Prosecutor of Sarreguemines, Olivier Glady. The parish priest was not in the church at the time.
The alert was given by the parents of two 14-year-old teenagers, students at a nearby high school, who had heard the man’s shouts while he was “clearly looking for the priest.” The Forbach police quickly responded and, around 1:45 p.m., located the man, who had taken refuge in a corner inside the church. He was arrested without resistance.
A knife, three SIM cards, and hashish
At the time of his arrest, the suspect was carrying “an Opinel-type knife, which was never brandished,” the prosecutor specified, along with three SIM cards and “a small amount of cannabis resin.” He was placed in police custody at the Forbach station for glorifying terrorism, possession of a Category D weapon, and drug use.
Born in 1991 in the former Yugoslavia, the detainee lives with his mother in the neighboring town of Stiring-Wendel, where a search was conducted and a phone without a SIM card and a tablet were seized; these are being analyzed by a specialized unit at the Metz police station. According to the prosecutor’s office, the man “is unknown to territorial intelligence services and is not subject to an S file,” although “his criminal record contains two entries unrelated to terrorism offenses or attacks against the interests of the State.” The investigation continues to “determine the suspect’s religious background as well as his psychiatric profile,” and the detention has been extended.
The parish priest: “I did not feel threatened”
The archpriest of Forbach, Father Laurent Pidolle, sought to reassure his community. “There was no assault, no violence, and no damage to the church,” he told the AFP news agency. The priest, who witnessed the arrest and said it took place “calmly,” did not know the suspect and did not recognize him in the photographs shown to him by investigators. “I did not feel threatened, and the man allowed himself to be arrested peacefully,” he added to the newspaper Le Républicain Lorrain, while praising the quick thinking of the young women who alerted the police.
The mayor of Forbach, Alexandre Cassaro, condemned “in the strongest terms this cowardly and hateful act, which could have had dramatic consequences.” In a statement, he highlighted “the courage and lucidity” of the teenagers and the “responsiveness” of the police, and expressed his support for the archpriest, the parish priests, and the entire local Catholic community with a firm statement: “Attacking a priest or a church is attacking the Republic.”
Three weeks before the Pope’s visit to Metz
The incident comes less than three weeks before the visit of Leo XIV to France. The Pope will be in Metz on September 28, the capital of the Moselle department and just over sixty kilometers from Forbach, adding pressure to the security measures being prepared by French authorities.
Although no one was injured on this occasion, the episode has brought back memories for many French Catholics of the murder of Father Jacques Hamel, who was beheaded on July 26, 2016, while celebrating Mass in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray by two young men claiming allegiance to the Islamic State. As the website Tribune Chrétienne recalled when reporting on the Forbach case, the vulnerability of priests to such attacks “is not theoretical.” Ten years after Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” and asking for the priest in a provincial church is still enough to make an entire parish hold its breath.