The Tamesis
A sword on a statue of Joan of Arc in Paris’ 8th arrondissement was broken and wielded by a man for reasons that remain unclear. It is reported parisianThe incident occurred on Monday morning when the man approached the monument – where Joan of Arc dramatically gallops on a horse – and the crime was caught on surveillance cameras.
Karen Taïeb, Paris’s deputy mayor for heritage, said of the CCTV footage: “We saw the man shaking his horse violently, then climbing up the statue and breaking the sword with a violent blow with his bare hands.” The man was arrested by police in a nearby street shortly after, and the sword broke into “several pieces” and was recovered. Authorities have not described any known motive behind the act.
Taib said the sword would be evaluated to see if it could be repaired. If not, it is copied and restored to its hero pose. “Joan of Arc will get her sword back no matter what,” said the deputy mayor, who called the vandalism an “extremely rare event.”
The statue of Joan of Arc was created by the sculptor Paul Dubois in 1895 and is now on loan to the City of Paris from the Musée d’Orsay. It is reportedly resuming in 2021 european conservative party“is the only statue in Paris depicting the Maid of Orleans holding a sword in her right hand and is considered an important part of the city’s cultural and religious heritage.”
