Two fire starts, a burnt side altar, large paintings by Louis Joseph Watteau gone up in smoke.
It is probably an arson which struck, on this Easter Monday, the Saint-Nicolas collegiate church of Avesnes-sur-Helpe, in the North.
A man,
"the last person to be out of the college"
before the fire, was placed in police custody on Tuesday morning.
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“This burning church is a symbol, a symbol all the more deadly as important works of the painter Watteau were lost in the flames
, moved the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who came to the bedside of the building classified as a historical monument.
There is the disappearance of this right side of the church.
And thick black smoke, which obviously affected the entire building.
Stones from the nave have fallen.
Fortunately, most of the church is preserved thanks to the rapid intervention of the firefighters. ”
The suspect, who disputes the facts, is
"a man of almost 60 years, of foreign nationality,
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