Dominique Venner identified as man who committed suicide in Notre Dame, he was protesting gay marriage

The 78-year-old man who made his way to the altar of the Notre Dame cathedral in the center of Paris left a letter as he committed suicide and now police confirm he was making a political statemet.

The title typed on the sheet of paper inside the envelope  read: “Declaration of Dominique Venner: reasons for a voluntary death.”

Venner is a longtime militant and member of French neo-fascist groups, who now has a new life as a respected historian, known for his expertise on weapons and hunting.

His suicide manifesto, as well as a blog post he published earlier that morning, took him directly back to the dark themes that drove his life: the “great replacement of the people of France” and the prospect of France “falling into the hands of Islamists.” He praised an upcoming protest of France’s new law legalizing gay marriage, which he called “detestable.”

The virulent reaction of the French right to the gay marriage law has surprised some Americans who tend to picture France as a secular and sexually liberated society. Not only have the streets of Paris swelled with enormous and violent demonstrations, but gay-bashing incidents have dotted the country, including the savage beating of Wilfred de Bruijn in early April.

Some 1,500 visitors were cleared out of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Tuesday after the man put a letter on the altar of the 850-year-old monument, pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head.

The Daily Beast writes:

Venner started several political groups based on European nationalism and rooted in the idea of ethnicity-based exceptionalism. His Europe-Action espoused a similar racialized ideology and united the remnants of the FEN, a white supremacist student group; the OAS; and handful unapologetic Nazi collaborators. These movements united a number of discordant strains—white supremacism, anti-communism, patriarchal morality, neo-pagan tribal religion—into a grand story about what must be done to save European culture from extermination. That explains their hostility to gay marriage: not because the Bible forbids it but because it’s a rejection of the religious heritage necessary for the flourishing of the European race.