A MAN who was held and released last week by French police investigating a fire at a Gothic cathedral in Nantes was yesterday rearrested, said prosecutors.

The fire broke out on July 18, hours after the volunteer altar server at the cathedral closed the building for the night.

Prosecutors launched an arson investigation into the blaze, which they said appeared to have broken out in three different parts of Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul in Nantes, western France.

Following developments in the inquiry, the man, a 39-year-old Rwandan national, was rearrested early yesterday and later appeared before a judge in the city, said prosecutor Pierre Sennes in a statement.

Last week, he said the man closed up the cathedral as part of “normal procedure”, and it was “premature” to suggest he was a suspect in the case.

The man’s lawyer, Quentin Chabert, said at the time there was nothing directly linking his client to the fire.

The blaze, which came just 15 months after a devastating fire tore through the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, destroyed the Nantes congregation’s famed organ, which dated from 1621 and had survived the French Revolution and World War II bombardment.

Also lost were priceless artefacts and paintings – including a piece by 19th-century artist Hippolyte Flandrin – and stained-glass windows that contained remnants of 16th-century glass. – AFP, July 26, 2020.