A man who lit a cigarette with a memorial flame at a war monument in Paris on Monday was arrested on Tuesday. A video of the incident has gone viral on social media in recent days.
The war monument Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located under the Arc de Triomphe. It contains the remains of a soldier who died in the First World War and is a tribute to French war victims.
A video of the incident shows the man bending over to light a cigarette with the memorial flame. Under the watchful eye of many tourists, he then walks away calmly. The video was posted on TikTok and subsequently went viral.
The man has since been taken into custody and has also confessed to guilt, French Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau wrote on X. Retailleau calls the man’s actions “indecent and pathetic”.
Patricia Mirallès, the Minister for Veterans and Remembrance, has brought the case to the French Public Prosecutor. She wants an example to be made of the man. “You can’t ridicule French commemoration and get away with it. This is an insult to our dead, to our history and to our nation,” she writes on X.