ԵՌԱԳՈՅՆ. The Samuel Mourad Armenian School in France was vandalized on Tuesday, days after the editorial office of Nouvelles d’Arménie’s magazine was broken into and ransacked, creating concern among the French-Armenian community about being targets of attacks.
Vandals broke into three central buildings of the school and smashed doors and windows of 24 rooms of the building with metal rods and stones.
This is not the first attack on this secondary Armenian Catholic school located in the storied town of Sevres, about six miles outside of Paris. The school was attacked in January. is a secondary Armenian Catholic school and was
“We are seriously concerned about repeated acts of vandalism against the Samuel Moorat Armenian College of Sevres. These acts should not go unpunished,” said Armenia’s Ambassador to France Hasmik Tolmajian in a Facebook post.
Armenia’s High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs also condemned the attack, in a statement posted on the office’s Facebook page. He also said that he met with the director of the school, Father Harutiun Bzdigian and discussed the fate of the school, which remains closed since the January attack. Sinanian added that after meeting with Bzdigian he was thinking about ways to reopen the school, “and today I found out about the second attack.”
“I was saddened to learn that the Samuel-Mouradian School in the north of Paris was again attacked. Vandalism—it is impossible to describe what happened in other words,” said Sinanian.
“I cannot ignore the brutal attack on the office of the Nouvelles d’Arménie magazine three days ago, which was simply a violation of free speech and democratic values,” said Sinanian. “I strongly condemn such actions against these two Armenian institutions in France, which has become a second homeland for thousands of our compatriots.”
Sinanian expressed his solidarity with the Samuel-Mouradian School and Nouvelles d’Arménie, adding that he spoke to Father Bzdigian upon hearing the news of the vandalism and offered his office’s support.