Over a year ago, Notre-Dame de Paris caught fire. The famous Parisian cathedral, that inspired Victor Hugo, saw its structure on fire and its spire collapse. In Paris, one will not forget the huge cloud of dark smoke that filled the sky, or the surrealistic views of Notre-Dame on fire.
15 hours were necessary to control the fire. Since then, the parvis has been closed, and French President Emmanuel Macron announced he wanted the cathedral to be rebuilt in 5 years. A year later, the coronavirus epidemic led the reconstruction work to stop. But little by little, as France seems on hold because of lockdown, it seems Notre-Dame de Paris is waking up again.
And for good reason, the scaffolding – that mostly melted in the fire – is being dismantled again from early June, as for reconstruction work, they are planned for January 2021, as Paris Archbishop announced this Tuesday June 16, 2020, once the last consolidation phase has started. “The consolidation phase shall be done. Reasonably, work can begin in January 2021” he said in a press conference with Jean-Louis Georgelin, head of Notre-Dame reconstruction operations.
But the cathedral did not wait for workers to come back to come back to life… To celebrate Easter, Notre-Dame housed on April 10 a ceremony in very small committee, that aired live. On April 15, 2020 at 8 p.m., its great bell, Emmanuel, second biggest bell in France, sound again one year after the fire to hail all French and efforts of the medical staff.
On April 27, 2020, the work was said to progressively start again to make the cathedral rise from its ashes. According to Le Figaro,, the goal on May 4, 2020 was that about fifty employees can go there again and resume work.
In a press release, Jean-Louis Georgelin – leading the reconstruction – said “as part of the progressive restart of the activity from this Monday, I made sure that adapted measures and procedures were implemented to make sure barrier gesture and social distancing are upheld”.
