Rennes (AFP)

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin was treated as a "dirty rapist" during the tributes to Father Hamel, murdered four years ago in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray and, according to the prefecture, eleven people arrested in the wake.

"Eleven people were arrested and interviewed, four are in police custody for contempt, and all are fined for prohibited demonstration", the same source said.

According to the prefecture, "even if there was a ban on demonstrations, the area was open to the public".

The people arrested are "known for belonging to the yellow vests and ultra left movement", and the words uttered are not the fact of feminists, according to the same source.

The prefecture deemed such an initiative "scandalous" during a meditation ceremony.

Since his appointment to the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has had to face a controversy around an accusation of rape which, far from withering away, weakens him and forces the government and the majority to support him as a whole, sometimes in an embarrassed manner.

Since 2017, he has been the subject of a complaint from a woman who had requested him in 2009 to try to have a conviction quashed. For Mr. Darmanin, on the contrary, it was a voluntary relationship.

Classified without further action at first, the procedure was relaunched by the Paris Court of Appeal, which requested new investigations in early June.

In his homage speech to Father Hamel on Sunday, the minister greeted the priest "who died under the blows of the most infamous and blind barbarism". His assassination "did not touch only Christians. He touched all of France in his heart and in his mind," he said.

"To kill a priest (...) is to attempt to assassinate a part of the national soul" underlined Mr. Darmanin.

"Four years later, we remember his action. Of this drama. And we do not forget," he assured, wishing that the life and death of the priest could "be both an example for those who believe and a vow of hope of republican fraternity for all ".

On July 26, 2016, Father Jacques Hamel, priest of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray (Seine-Maritime), was slaughtered in his church by two jihadists, Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, who were killed by the police. The assassination was claimed by the Islamic State organization.

© 2020 AFP