“Faced by the madness that has sown death in the town hall of Nanterre, this is not the time for explanations but of compassion”, declared Bishop François Favreau of Nanterre, in an off-the-cuff comment to SIR. Bishop Favreau immediately visited the scene of the massacre. At a quarter past one, on 27 March, at the end of a sitting of the town council of Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris, a 33-year-old man, Richard Durne, suddenly opened fire with automatic weapons on the town councillors, killing eight of them outright and injuring thirty more, 14 of them seriously. “In response to this blind, unjust assassination, a sentiment of anger and revolt is understandable. These men were innocent and unarmed. The inhabitants of Nanterre were devastated by the news of the outrage. And this feeling risks spreading to all those involved in political life”, laments the bishop. “Who then is the man who can go so far as to kill one of his own kind?”, he asks. “We must learn what is good and what is evil. Now perhaps people will be shocked into rediscovering what man is, his nature, his dignity! The consequences of this gesture will be grave”, predicts Msgr. Favreau.
