In the fire in the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul, the organ, among other things, went up in flames. It dated from 1621 and withstood the French Revolution and bombardments during the Second World War, among other things. Objects, stained glass windows and paintings have also been lost. The owners of the cathedral estimate the damage at around 40 million euros.
The arsonist is a 42-year-old man from Rwanda who came to France in 2012. He applied for asylum several times but was told in 2019 that he had to leave the country. The prosecutor in the case stated that he set the fire out of anger. The man himself testified that he came to the cathedral to pray on the day of the fire, but that something snapped inside him when he passed a place in the building where he was allegedly assaulted in 2018.
In addition to his prison sentence, the man will not be allowed to own any weapons for the next five years and will not be allowed to go near Nantes.