Lille Mayor Files Complaint Over Nazi Symbols on City Statue

It was on Twitter that the Mayor of Lille announced the city’s intention to file a complaint. "Swastikas and SS symbols have been drawn on the statue of the Demoiselle de Fives. This act is deeply shameful and infamous. The city of Lille is filing a complaint," wrote Martine Aubry.

Confiding to AFP, Sébastien Duhem, Deputy Mayor in charge of Fives and cleanliness in Lille, indicated that this statue represents a woman looking towards the future. "The inscriptions were immediately cleaned but they were renewed during the night from Friday to Saturday, on the statue as well as on the walls of a commercial street nearby," he said, before hammering that "this is unacceptable".

For him, "we cannot remain silent in the face of this, especially in recent times when we see the rise of extremism in France or elsewhere".

In France, several inscriptions of the same type have been discovered in public places, particularly in Alsace.