Six Catholics were taken into police custody on Saturday June 6 after attempting to pray silently in front of the historic Church of St Laurent in Paris.
They were protesting against the transformation of the consecrated building into a venue for a secular sound installation directed as part of the city’s Nuit Blanche festival, whose 2026 artistic director was the LGBT activist and DJ Barbara Butch.
The detentions have provoked anger among French Catholics, who see the episode as emblematic of a growing intolerance: peaceful prayer suppressed by police while a consecrated church is used for an ideologically charged cultural event.
