France held a grand ceremony this Saturday to celebrate the reopening of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, five years after the fire that destroyed its emblematic spire and caused serious damage to the entire monument. With the country immersed in a political crisis and its popularity at minimum levels, Emmanuel Macron wanted to take advantage of the respite offered by the celebration, broadcast to the entire world and attended by almost 50 heads of State and Government, to restore its image. .
Among the guests was the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump. Pope Francis, who rejected the invitations from the Elysée, did not attend, despite the fact that this month he will visit French territory with a trip to Corsica, an absence much commented on these days in the French media.
On April 15, 2019, a terrible fire devastated the Parisian cathedral, which at that time was undergoing restoration work. The flames devoured the spire, the ceilings, the clock and part of the vault, as well as “la Forêt”the spectacular framework of wooden beams that supported the roof. Only the last-minute intervention of a team of firefighters in the bell tower prevented the fire from causing irreparable damage to the temple.
The fire of the Paris cathedral marked a country particularly concerned about the decline of the nation (the 87% of the French feels that France is in decline). The then Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe, tells in his book Des lieux qui dissent that in the hours after the fire, his hands began to shake uncontrollably.
Five years later, the investigation into the origin of the fire has not yet published its conclusions, although the prosecution has almost completely ruled out the thesis of an provoked act, as well as that of a manipulation failure between the people who were then working on the works. of restoration.
It remains to establish the responsibility of the State and the French clergy in the succession of security omissions and negligent decisions that made the tragedy possible. In parallel, the courts are also investigating the potentially harmful health consequences of this fire, due to the lead-laden dust that spread the smoke cloud.
Legacy
On the same night of the fire, when the fire was not yet fully controlled, Emmanuel Macron promised to promote the recovery of the building. “We will rebuild the cathedral even more beautiful, and I want it to be finished within five years,” he said the next day in a television speech.
Since then, the French president has personally followed the project, which he saw as an opportunity to build a legacy in the capital, as his predecessors did. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was especially involved in the inauguration of the Orsay Museum, François Mitterrand in the Louvre pyramid and the Arch of La Défense, Jacques Chirac in the museum that bears his name on the Quai de Branly.
Initially, Emmanuel Macron planned to organize a competition to build a contemporary version of the spire. However, the experts convinced him to rebuild faithfully to that of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1859. Macron chose to promote the replacement of the stained glass windows, which were from the same period – and which were found intact after the fire – with new ones. , to leave posterity a memory of the current era. The result of the contest will be known soon.
The decision to replace the stained glass windows was made against the National Commission for Heritage and Architecture, and taken to court by several heritage defense associations. In any case, the president considers it a personal victory that Notre-Dame reopens to the public within the announced deadline. And in a particularly turbulent period of his mandate, the head of state wants the reopening to serve to boost his image.
“That work that we thought was impossible, all of us, on that afternoon in April 2019. Well, we have achieved it, just as we successfully organized our Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Macron said Thursday in his televised speech, after the motion of censure approved against Michel Barnier. “The cathedral will be returned to Parisians, to all of us, to Catholics around the world and to religious communities.”
Millionaires and multinationals
The president visited the works a week before the ceremony, on Friday, November 29, a moment he shared with a thousand companions, including workers, architects and artisans, “those most involved in the reconstruction,” according to a phrase used by the Elysée to describe the act. “You have shown the world that nothing resists audacity,” the French head of state then proclaimed.
Among those present were also some of the main patrons of the restoration project. The impressive fundraising, supported by a national subscription campaign, reached record levels from the first days, ending with 846 million euros raised, according to the latest accounts of the public institution Rebâtir Notre-Dame.
That is why in this weekend’s celebrations, among the guests of honor, next to the Heads of State, the largest donors will sit. A who’s who of French capitalism, in which great fortunes and multinationals combine.
Opening the list are billionaire Bernard Arnault, head of the LVMH luxury empire, and the Bettencourt-Meyers family and their L’Oréal group. Each one disbursed 200 million euros, which represents almost half of the funds raised. In a second step, the Pinault family and the Total group, which contributed 100 million euros each. Next, a dozen other large donors (Bouygues, JC Decaux or the insurer AXA, among others).
Paradoxically missing from the list are two millionaires very involved in the defense of Catholicism in politics and the media, Vincent Bolloré and Pierre-Edouard Stérin. “The lack of generosity of Bolloré and Stérin reveals the lines of division of French Catholicism” he recently analyzed Liberation. “In the diocese of Paris, concern has grown in recent months about the influence of ultra-conservative and identitarian Catholic circles, which are now shamelessly associated with the extreme right. Thus, the restoration of Notre-Dame is also, among Catholics, a war of chapels.”
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