A homeless man who already had 21 criminal convictions in Paris is now facing deportation for committing his most egregious crime of all… lighting a cigarette with the Eternal Flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Footage doing the rounds on social media shows the 47-year-old climbing over the chain barrier beneath the Arc de Triomphe and lighting up his cigarette:
BREAKING:
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announces that a 47-y-old Moroccan has been identified as the person who lit his cigarette on the Eternal Flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris.
The minister says his permanent residency right will be revoked pic.twitter.com/0dfgosMH4f
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 6, 2025
Bruno Retailleau, France’s interior minister, said on X: ‘This unworthy and deplorable act undermines the memory of those who died for France.’
Patricia Miralles, the French minister for war veterans, was in full agreement, calling the act ‘not a mere misstep, but a desecration’.
The suspect, identified only as Hamdi H, initially denied responsibility before admitting that he was indeed the man in the video. He will now have his residence permit revoked and be booted out of France for the offence, which would otherwise carry a one-year prison sentence and a €15,000 fine.
Hamid is well known to Paris police and has 21 records in the criminal record processing file (TAJ), including car theft, vandalism, violence and public insults on grounds of race.
Apparently you don’t lose citizenship for repeatedly breaking the law on those fronts, but sparking up with the Eternal Flame is where France draws the line. Fair enough, really.
For the Florida man arrested for slapping a pregnant woman who was smoking a cigarette, click HERE.
