"Thousands" is an exaggeration. There are only 3,391 cathedrals in the world. 110 of them are in France. Two burned cathedrals account for 1.8% of all the Cathedrals in France. On a national scale, percentages like that are huge. Millions of people have been robbed of their chief holy buildings, in only two attacks.
As an aside, there are about 45,000 Catholic church buildings in France. There were 1,063 attacks on Catholic church buildings in France in 2018. That's an average of nearly 3 attacks per day! But most of them are against smaller churches, not famous cathedrals, and most don't involve arson, so the foreign press doesn't notice.
"Thousands" is an exaggeration. There are only 3,391 cathedrals in the world. 110 of them are in France. Two burned cathedrals account for 1.8% of all the Cathedrals in France. On a national scale, percentages like that are huge. Millions of people have been robbed of their chief holy buildings, in only two attacks.
As an aside, there are about 45,000 Catholic church buildings in France. There were 1,063 attacks on Catholic church buildings in France in 2018. That's an average of nearly 3 attacks per day! But most of them are against smaller churches, not famous cathedrals, and most don't involve arson, so the foreign press doesn't notice.