Christmas and Epiphany: Gérald Darmanin calls on prefects to maintain "extreme vigilance"

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credits: XOSE BOUZAS / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 12:46 p.m., December 22, 2023, modified at 12:47 p.m., December 22, 2023

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Friday called on prefects to "maintain extreme vigilance" on the occasion of the Christmas and Epiphany celebrations, due to the "very high level of the terrorist threat that continues to weigh". In a telegram sent to all the prefects, Gérald Darmanin asked them "to pay all the necessary attention to the security arrangements put in place for the services and gatherings that will take place on the occasion of the Christian holidays of Christmas and Epiphany that will follow one another".

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France has activated since October 13 the emergency level attack of the Vigipirate device

"Thank you for the systematic presence of the security forces in front of all places of worship," he added in a handwritten annotation, emphasizing his request for "heightened vigilance by a static presence visible at the arrival and departure times of the faithful during Christmas gatherings and services." The targeted holidays are Christmas on December 24 and 25 "for Catholics, Protestants and part of the Orthodox" and January 6 and 7 "for some of the Orthodox and for Armenian Christians", as well as Epiphany on January 6 and 7 "for Catholics" and January 19 "for some Orthodox".

The minister made this reminder while France has activated since October 13 the emergency level attack of the Vigipirate device, the highest, following the murder of Dominique Bernard, a French teacher in a high school in Arras, stabbed by a radicalized former student. The activation of the attack emergency level also took place in an international context marked by the war between Israel and Hamas, triggered by a bloody and unprecedented attack perpetrated by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip.