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is paris burning?
I could be so uncouth as to idiotically go below the stupid reasons why Notre Dame of Paris went up in flame… I will be so uncouth...
One can speculate on "sabotage" or “accident”. At this level of destruction, nothing is an accident. Accidents such as these only happen through carelessness, lack of attention and expediency. This is why we have insurance companies defining liability and culpability, with no-claim bonus.
In Australia, a young worker recently got killed when a scaffolding collapsed. Unsafe practices seemed to have been at the core of the problem. We shall leave this one to the lawyers. In Australian, per annum, around 150 workers die at work because....
Note: this is NOT the FIRST such restoration of old buildings in France where the building went up in flame “during the work”. Some uncouth French people have alluded to a "restoration closed-shop (mafia)"... I do not know.
So how can a country that built the Concorde and the A380, is unable to restore a cathedral without burning it down?
Does the answer to the question lies in that modern building technique aren’t suitable for such cathedral restoration work which demands über qualified stonemasons, companion carpenters — companion charpentier-meunuisier in France is a famous restricted guild of skilled workers who have completed a rigorous apprenticeship and further training by going from town to town country-wide to be versed in the traditional often secret methods of woodworking, such as understanding wood grains, using hand tools and deep respect for the timber, plus using the more accurate measuring sticks instead of laser pointers, thus allowing for elegant adjustment imponderable instead of being tight fitted — and roofers from their old guilds as well, rather than tradesmen (women up there on the scaffolds? you’re kidding...) in yellow vest, heavy mud boots and hard hats, and engineers with degrees from the school of saving a few bucks?
Am I too uncouth, unless I have read somewhere in the ether that God let young Mohamed Wahab use his acetylene/oxygen cutting tool above the old dusty beams of the grand dame… This is below the belt before any police investigation.
My first conclusion was DUST. See: restoration gone wrong...?
So, here is a piece written two years ago, by a guy called MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY for the right-wing mag National Review:
There is a lot of gloom about Europe lately. A large Islamist terror cell tried to blow up the cathedral in Barcelona a few weeks ago, an as yet uncompleted modern masterpiece. Douglas Murray’s haunting and elegiac book The Strange Death of Europe dwells on how Europe lost its faith in Christ, and then lost faith in all the substitutes for Christianity: Fascism, Communism, human rights next, probably. Murray is not quite a believer, but he writes, “I cannot help feeling that much of the future of Europe will be decided on what our attitude is towards the church buildings and other great cultural buildings of our heritage standing in our midst.”
So what is the attitude to Notre Dame? Though the French state is its owner, it will not spend the money for necessary repairs. The local archbishop does not believe that he can raise the funds to keep this astounding testament to French history and genius locally, from the descendants of those who built it.
When I read the fundraising pitch I giggled, because my stomach contorted the way it does when a plane drops a little. But, surely, the pilot is still in control. It’s just the normal turbulence of secularism. And the slightly panicked whinny in the plea for money is just a silly overreaction. The plane will steady itself, right? I’m putting it out of my head.
Then again, Notre Dame is another rock that is pointed upward — and Notre Dame is falling down. I’m moving up my plans to go to Notre Dame, and maybe I will offer a confession there. Maybe more of us should, or someday the tabloids will record our last words about Notre Dame. “F***, we’re dead!”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/09/paris-notre-dame-cathedral-funding-problems/
And now the French are planning to rebuilt the damaged parts with 150 millon Euros in five years… Dresden did it, why not Paris? Why not France? Would believe 1.2 billion? Macron the failed re-builder of France so far is going to give it a go, for Paris… It could be painful to watch. They will have to deconstruct the scaffolding and build a new one entirely — plus clean up the smoke affected stones. They did not in Dresden as a reminder of the war.
One could say that this author was prophetic (if there is such a beast, but a keen observer of what is, to know what’s going to happen next — science does this a lot), and he explained the problem thus:
Well, in 2017, the rites of the Catholic religion aren’t yet entirely unknown in France. But I recently discovered that, contrary to Proust, there are limits to state subsidy. The French state does own the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and knows it is a major draw for tourists to Paris. The government kicks in about 2 million euros a year for basic maintenance. But pieces of the cathedral have been falling off it for years. Major repairs haven’t been tried since Marcel Proust was a teenager. The archbishop of Paris is now seeking about 100 million euros to do the work that needs to be done. And this fund-raising campaign is aimed partly at Americans.
The destruction of Notre Dame is a cultural tragedy, but things won’t change really. The roof was leaking and stones were falling. It had to be fixed, so what better way to fix it than have a bonfire and redo it from scratch, bar a few historical bits. I can't see the progressivists demanding the space to be rebuilt in a Pompidou centre style to celebrate the 21th century, so one has to be prepared that modernities don't infiltrate the rebuild.
As an aside, the National Review is based on the philosophy of "fusionism” developed during the 1950s under the editorship of William F. Buckley, Jr. and with his associate editor Frank Meyer.
In his book, In Defense of Freedom, Meyer defined freedom in what Isaiah Berlin would label "negative” terms, as the minimisation of the use of coercion by the state in its essential role of preventing one person's freedom from intruding upon another's. One needs small shoes.
This smells a bit of respectful anarchy… but the state should protect freedom and leave virtue to individuals. The state has only three legitimate functions – police, military and operating a legal system, all necessary to control coercion, a coercion which is immoral thus has to be restricted...
Here with the pseudo-battle between Democrats and republicans, we’re far from this anti-coercion ideal and with about 90 per cent of the American citizenry being gun-ho and dreaming of corrupt, we cannot expect miracles, especially when Uncle Rupe manipualtes the mind of people (I had to mention Mr Murdoch in this essay, any matter what...).
Even god does not do miracles any more, otherwise the restoration team up there on the scaffoldings would have had a fire safety officer with a bucket of water.
Gus Leonisky
Former restorer of a few houses with an atheistic measuring stick.
- By Gus Leonisky at 17 Apr 2019 - 9:17am
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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the romans did it...
The Roman city of Lutetia (also Lutetia Parisiorum in Latin, in French Lutèce) was the predecessor of present-day Paris.
Impressive monumental remains of the ancient city can still be seen in situ.
The city was referred to as "Λουκοτοκία" (Lukotokía) by Strabo, "Λευκοτεκία" (Lefkotekía) by Ptolemy and "Lutetia" by Julius Caesar. The origin of this name is uncertain.
The name may contain the Celtic root *luco-t-, which means "mouse" and -ek(t)ia, meaning "the mice" and which can be found today in the Breton word logod, the Welsh llygod, and the Irish luch.[1]
Alternatively, it may derive from another Celtic root, luto- or luteuo-, which means "marsh" or "swamp" and which survives today in the Gaelic loth ("marsh") and the Breton loudour ("dirty").[2] As such, it would be related to other place names in Europe including Lutudarum (Derbyshire, England); Lodève (Luteua) and Ludesse (France); Lutitia(Germany); Lutsk (Ukraine); Pryluky (Ukraine) and Velikiye Luki (Russia).
Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutetia
"Lutetia parisiorum" or "Civitas parisiorum", "the city of the parisii" was the name given by the Romans to the village where the parisii tribe lived, a Celtic tribe, in the third century BC. The name was later shortened by the Romans.
alarm, alarm... fire...
Paris prosecutor Rémy Heitz has set out a timeline of events as his office launches an investigation into the cause of the catastrophic fire that tore through the iconic Notre Dame cathedral, toppling its famous spire and bringing down most of the roof.
A fire alarm reportedly first went off inside Notre Dame Cathedral at 6:20 p.m. Monday, local time. However, according to the official investigation, cathedral staff unsuccessfully searched for signs of a fire for 23 critical minutes, and were unable to determine the reason for the alarm.
It wasn't until a second alarm went off at 6:43 p.m. that a fire was detected in the attic of the centuries-old religious landmark, French officials said Tuesday.
Heitz said the initial alarm, which was looked into by cathedral staff and not firefighters, caused the church to be evacuated but did not lead to the discovery of the fire, according to the Washington Post.
"We are favouring the theory of an accident," Heitz told reporters Tuesday, adding that the investigation into the blaze would be "long" and "complex".
READ MORE: ‘It Will Not Fall Down’: French Officials Dismissed Notre Dame’s State in 2017
"In the meantime, the church was evacuated because a Mass had just started a bit earlier," Heitz said.
Read more:
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201904171074205905-notre-dame-cathedral-b...
Under such circumstances, fire brigades should have been alerted ASAP...
charlie on fire...
In the aftermath of the fire that devastated part of Notre Dame, the satirical weekly made jokes about the timetable of reforms that the executive must propose. The face of the president spreads out on the cover, wearing a cathedral on fire.
Reacting to the fire that ravaged the roof and the spire of the Notre-Dame cathedral on April 15, the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo quips about the disaster on the cover of his number that will be in the stands on April 17 and even , exceptionally, from this April 16 in fifty or so Parisian kiosks.
Representing the face of Emmanuel Macron whose head is crowned with a cathedral in flames, the cartoonist Riss wrote "Reforms" and added a speech bubble that reads: "I start with the roof."
Confronted for several months by a social crisis, Macron was to speak on the evening of April 15 about the construction of new infrastructure projects, following the Great National Debate, but the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris upset the politico-media calendar . Emmanuel Macron postponed his speech to go to the forecourt of Notre-Dame in Paris.
The satire here is that Macron gets an unplanned massive new project on his hands and instead of working from the ground up, he will have to start it from the top (the roof)...
the misérables rich who get tax breaks...
PARIS — The pledges came in quick succession.
François-Henri Pinault, France’s second-richest man, put up an eye-popping 100 million euros to rebuild Notre-Dame, just as firefighters were dousing the last flames at the cathedral early Tuesday morning. Not to be outdone, Bernard Arnault, France’s wealthiest scion and a fierce rival to Mr. Pinault, upped the ante with a 200-million-euro gift a few hours later.
By Wednesday, the government had welcomed some 850 million euros — more than $960 million — offered in the patriotic name of salvaging the cultural treasure, as money from wealthy French families, French companies and international corporations poured in.
But the spectacle of billionaires trying to one-up each other quickly intensified resentments over inequality that have flared during the Yellow Vest movement, just as President Emmanuel Macron was looking to transform the calamity into a new era of national unity. There were accusations that the wildly rich were trying to wash their reputations during a time of national tragedy.
“Can you imagine, 100 million, 200 million in one click!” said Philippe Martinez, the head of the militant CGT labor union. “It really shows the inequalities in this country.”
“If they’re able to give dozens of millions to rebuild Notre Dame,” he added, “they should stop telling us that there is no money to pay for social inequalities.”
Ollivier Pourriol, a French philosopher and novelist, summed up the sentiment more drolly.
“Victor Hugo thanks all the generous donors ready to save Notre Dame and proposes that they do the same thing with Les Misérables,” he wrote on Twitter, referring to another one of Hugo’s famous novels, about the lives of the poor.
Manon Aubry, a senior figure in France Insoumise, the main radical left party, called the funding an “exercise in public relations.” She said the donors’ list “looks like the rankings of companies and people located in tax havens.”
She added: “I want to tell them: Start by paying your taxes. That will add to the state culture budget.”
The firestorm began when Jean-Jacques Aillagon, a former culture minister and now adviser to Mr. Pinault, went on Twitter after Mr. Pinault announced his gift Tuesday to suggest that corporate contributions to Notre-Dame’s restoration be given a 90 percent tax deduction, rather than the 60 percent that corporations normally get for charitable contributions.
“That’s when the whole thing exploded,” said Pierre Haski, a commentator for France-Inter, the public radio station. “That produced outrage, that this act of generosity turns into fiscal advantage.”
The reaction was so intense that Mr. Aillagon went on the radio Wednesday morning to retract his suggestion. The Pinault family then announced that they would seek no tax deduction at all for the gift.
“It was very revealing about the sensitivity of the whole issue,” Mr. Haski said, coming in the midst of a great national debate about the yellow vests and their protests against inequality and fiscal privileges.
In general many are relieved that Notre-Dame still stands, and if there is now a billion euros to reconstruct it, without calling too deeply on an already stretched national budget, that may be enough.
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/world/europe/yellow-vest-notre-dame-fire-donations.html?
Read from top where I mentioned NOT FLIPPANTLY that the resconstruction would demand 1.2 billion Euros. In terms of time? 15 years to the last copper nail on the roof. with problems such as using "green" timbers of SHORTER lenghts and finding enough of it. And more... I know plenty of "five minutes jobs" that take a couple of weeks EACH...
notre dame, already reconstructed!...
La cathédrale Notre-Dame de l'Assomption d'Alep a été reconsacrée le 23 avril après avoir été ravagée lors de la guerre en Syrie.
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption of Aleppo was reconsecrated on April 23 after being ravaged during the war in Syria.
See more:
https://francais.rt.com/videos/61352-syrie-cathedrale-catholique-reconsa...
not looking after it...
Editorial.
The "national consensus" regarding the cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris, tooted by Emmanuel Macron, has serious faults. We do not see this as a left-right fracture. Nor is the debate about wealthy donors who would prefer stones to the poor. But Macron's proposal brings questions, on two fronts, his own views expressed during his television allowance of April 16, the day after the fire. This is because of what he did not say.
Macron did not have a single word on the question of responsibilities, preferring to evoke a kind of fatality. Others will have to do this instead. The weekly Marianne raised serious issues, on April 18, by publishing an interview with Paolo Vannucci who, in a 2016 report for the CNRS, pointed to the weakness of the fire system at the cathedral.
(Article reserved for our subscribers: Notre-Dame de Paris — the bursts of generosity decried by large companies)
Le Canard Enchainé revealed on April 30 that the Ministry of Culture, which pays Elytis, the company in charge of security at Notre Dame, decided in 2015, to remove one of the two positions assigned to security. The security agent present at the time of the tragedy was NEW. When a smoke alarm went off, "he made a mistake" by looking at the wrong spot. Thirty-five minutes were lost. Le Canard Enchainé added that Elytis employees have repeatedly warned about the lack of staff and about the malfunctions of the fire alarms.
The Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, without responding directly to Le Canard Enchainé, told Le Parisien on May 2 that he will organise "more resources" for security during work on historical monuments. Let's wait for the follow up of the investigation. "As long as we don't know, we keep mum," wisely said Philippe Villeneuve, the architect in charge of Notre-Dame de Paris (M magazine du Monde, April 27).
It should nevertheless be remembered that heritage loans are minuscule (3.4% of the budget of culture), that the state is cutting cultural resources everywhere, and that now as emergency works are carried out, as in Notre-Dame, this work offers more security.
And, as we know that fires on historical monuments often occur during works, the most visited building in Europe should have deserved much more attention, for example like presence of firefighters permanently, as it is the case at Versailles.
Read more:
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/05/03/reconstruction-de-notre-...
Translation by Jules Letambour
Read from top, especially "as we know that fires on historical monuments often occur during works".
an old lady without a roof...
A Gothic masterpiece, the cathedral of Paris was struck on April 15 by a fire that destroyed its roof framework — and its spire, itself signed Viollet-le-Duc in 1859. The French President, Emmanuel Macron, wishes for the building to be restored within five years — a time constraint deemed unrealistic by some specialists.
Respect the rules of restoration and the code of heritage conservation ...
"It is not by imposing an agenda" modeled on "the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024" that "we can faithful" to Notre Dame, criticized the member of France Insubordinate Alexis Corbière. "A very old lady has just broken her hip and before making a diagnosis on her condition, she is given a medical prescription, anxiolytics, she's put on a diet of beans and asked to prepare for a marathon," also said France Insubordinate member Clementine Autain.
"It's an ambitious, arbitrary deadline that will impact all the working teams involved," said Franck Riester, adding the work could not be done "hastily" and we should respect "the rules of heritage restoration".
Faced with donations and pledges from individuals, businesses and communities, which now approach one billion euros, the government has planned to have a new law of management and control system for the cash.
This text ratifies the national subscription since April 16 and provides that all donations collected will be donated to the state or a public institution. Private donors may benefit from a 75% tax reduction up to a limit of 1,000 euros for all donations made between 16 April and 31 December 2019.
This first part of the bill has not been much criticised by the [National Assembly], the main question is what the state should do with a possible surplus of donations, once the work is done. Franck Riester, however, cautioned those who already mention surpluses: "While some donations have already been paid in, others are waiting to materialise and the cost of the entire work has not been quantified." He also reiterated that all the gifts "will go solely and entirely to Notre Dame". The total amount of work should not exceed 600 to 700 million euros according to various guesstimates. [note, Gus' estimate is 1.2 billion Euro (as mentioned at top)]
The second part of the government's bill is more controversial. It deals with the creation of a public institution to design, realise and coordinate the work. The government authorises itself to fiddle with, if necessary, urban planning, environmental protection, public control and heritage preservation rules.
"This morning you proposed, by decree, that we give you a blank check," denounced Frédérique Dumas (UDI-Agir) quoting an Odoxa poll published May 10 in the press, according to which "72% of French people are strongly opposed to the creation of an exclusive special law" for Notre Dame.
Read more:
https://francais.rt.com/france/61932-restauration-dame-paris-loi-polemiq...
Translation by Jules Letambour.
Read from top.
god's unreal estate for tourists...
The Ile de la Cité real estate renovation operation and its transformation into a tourist promenade began with the awarding of part of the Hôtel-Dieu to Novaxia, “philanthropist” Joachim Azan’s "transitory urbanism" group (photo).
This mega-operation was imagined in 2016, at the request of President François Hollande and the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, by the director of historical monuments Philippe Bélaval and architect Dominique Perrault.
It plans to take advantage of the renovation of the Tribunal de Paris, the Prefecture of Police and Hôtel-Dieu, in order to draw all the tourist potential of the Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Sainte-Chapelle.
The cathedral fire constituted a "divine surprise" for the public authorities who will thus be able to carry out this project and commercially exploit the whole island. This, the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, summed up by declaring that Notre-Dame de Paris is "not a cathedral, it’s our common good".
Rented for 144 million euros for 80 years, part of the Hotel-Dieu hospital will be transformed into housing, luxury shops and a gourmet restaurant. The hospital unions, observing the cuts to Parisian emergency services, are protesting against this choice.
The public tendering process had started before the Notre-Dame Cathedral fire.
Fast-tracked, an ad hoc law was voted in first reading by the National Assembly to manage the collection of donations for the restoration of the cathedral. It provides incidentally that the Government will be authorized, by government order, to make any and all derogations:
1 ° "To the rules concerning town planning, environment, construction and heritage preservation, in particular with regard to the compliance of planning documents, the issuance of works and construction authorizations, modalities of public participation in decision-making and environmental assessment, as well as preventive archeology;
2 ° Rules relating to public commissions, public lands, roads and transport. "
The real estate project provides, for its part, the construction of a network of tunnels that will allow tourists to access the crypt of Notre Dame, but especially to relieve traffic on the island.
The ultimate goal is to transform the island from an administrative city into one of the busiest tourist areas in Europe.
On the same subject: “The Hidden Stakes of the Restoration of Notre-Dame”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 16 May 2019.
Translation
Roger Lagassé
Read more:
https://www.voltairenet.org/article206525.html
Read from top...
like changing the name on a ship: it's bad luck...
Now we know why Notre Dame had a fire: bad luck due to a change of name...
See:
http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/935#comment-4864
the MSM follows...
...
... instead of being a unifying project, the vexed question of the restoration of the Notre Dame has become a metaphor for the battle between Macron’s modernising “startup nation” vision of France, and the large number of French citizens who don’t want anything to do with it. Some 1,169 architects, curators and professors signed an open letter to Macron, advising him to wait and to think this reconstruction through. “Let us take the time for a proper diagnosis,” stated the letter. “Listen to the experts, let’s recognise their knowledge, and then, yes, let’s fix an ambitious deadline for an exemplary restoration.”
Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/10/notre-dam-macron-p...
On this little YD site, we've been onto this problem, even before the fire was extinguished. Macron wants to turn this "accidental" cultural disaster into "his Pompidou Centre". Macron is a little imbecile who got lucky with bullshit. He is no statesman — he is nothing more than an inflated bank-teller who's been put in charge of the cash of a nation... Read from top.
it could collapse...
Two months after the fire that ravaged the cathedral, the vault of Notre-Dame de Paris is still threatening to collapse, said Friday, June 14, the French Culture Minister, Franck Riester . "Notre Dame is still today in a fragile state, especially at the level of the vault, which has not yet been secured," he said on France 2. "It can always collapse. "
The frame, dating from the Middle Ages, and the spire erected in the nineteenth century went up in smoke in the disaster — a priori an accident — on April 15. The walls, on the other hand, remained upright. "The whole area around Notre Dame has been secured, propped up, fretted, a number of stained glass windows have been removed to protect them, restore them, security measures have been taken on the various gables," added the Minister of Culture, but the vault remains "the most fragile part".
Read more:
https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2019/06/14/la-cathedrale-notre-da...
Trans by Jules L. Read from top
who can blame them...?
The billionaire French tycoons who pledged hundreds of millions in financial aid to rebuild Notre Dame cathedral in Paris have not yet paid a penny toward the restoration of the national monument, according to church and business officials.
Key points:Instead, it's mainly American and French individuals, via Notre Dame charitable foundations, that are behind the first donations paying the bills and salaries for up to 150 workers employed by Notre Dame since an April 15 fire devastated its roof and caused its masterpiece spire to collapse.
This month they are handing over the first private payment for the cathedral's reconstruction of $5.8 million.
"The big donors haven't paid. Not a cent," said Andre Finot, senior press official at Notre Dame.
Read more:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-15/notre-dame-says-tycoons-have-not-...
Read from top, then you would understand why people would not give their cash without some garantees of "sanity in the reconstruction/restoration" of the place. At the moment the project is in limbo — caught between "restoration and "improvement" — and the vaults are threatening to collapse as well... Wait and see.
god and his hard hats...
Priests wear hard hats at Notre-DameThe first Mass has been held at Notre-Dame cathedral since the devastating fire in April.
There were fears the 800-year-old cathedral could be completely destroyed during the fierce blaze.
Firefighters managed to save the structure and much of its interior.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-48649245/priests-wear-hard-hats-at-not...
Read from top.
reminiscing...
The main rosace of Notre dame de Paris. Picture by Gus Leonisky, c 1960s
chinese designers win notre-dame contest...
Two Chinese designers, with their work Paris Heart Beat, have won the championship in a design competition for rebuilding Notre Dame Cathedral in France.
The competition was launched by GoArchitect, an independent publisher of books based in LA, and it received 226 proposals from 56 countries in all, with over 30,000 people voting during the competition.
The two Chinese designers, Cai Zeyu and Li Sibei, both currently work at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Foundation (Chicago, US), and respectively graduated from Tsinghua University and Beijing University of Technology. Three highlights of their design Paris Heart Beat are the Paris Time Capsule, City Kaleidoscope and Mirror Roof.
Read more:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201908/07/WS5d4a8395a310cf3e355646d4.html
Not as good as Gus' solar panels solution with a spire supporting a wind turbine...
Read from top.
the original design should be the one...
Tensions are high in the reconstruction project for France’s Notre Dame cathedral after an Army general appointed by President Emmanuel Macron has told an architect fighting for the original spire design to “shut his mouth.”
It’s not a fight you expect to see very often, but the reconstruction of the fire-gutted Notre Dame cathedral has led to a showdown between the chief architect and General Jean-Louis Georgelin, appointed by French President Emmanuel Macron to pilot the restoration project.
Chief architect Philippe Villeneuve has been faced with an ambitious five-year deadline to restore the famed cathedral’s interior, roof, and the iconic spire completely destroyed in the April blaze.
Read more:
https://www.rt.com/news/473500-notre-dame-row-restore-spire/
Read from top.
olympicus dominae nostrae operationem erroris...
The rector of Notre Dame cathedral says the Paris landmark is still so fragile there is a "50 per cent chance" the structure might not be entirely saved, because scaffolding installed before this year's fire is threatening the vaults of the Gothic monument.
Key points:Monsignor Patrick Chauvet said restoration work is not likely to begin until 2021 and described his "heartache" at not being able to celebrate Christmas services inside Notre Dame this year, for the first time since the French Revolution.
"Today, it is not out of danger," he said on the sidelines of Christmas Eve midnight mass in a nearby church. "It will be out of danger when we take out the remaining scaffolding."
"Today we can say that there is maybe a 50 per cent chance that it will be saved. There is also 50 per cent chance of scaffolding falling onto the three vaults, so as you can see, the building is still very fragile," he said.
The 12th-century cathedral was under renovation at the time of the accidental April fire, which destroyed its roof and collapsed its spire.
Read more:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-25/notre-dame-50-per-cent-chance-str...
Read from top
what about the roof?...
The spire of Notre Dame cathedral, which was destroyed in a fire last April, will be restored according to the original Gothic design.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced the decision, putting an end to speculation that the spire would be rebuilt in a modern style.
Mr Macron had previously hinted he was in favour of a "contemporary gesture".
However he has said he wants the restoration to be completed by 2024, when Paris is hosting the Olympics.
The Elysée said Mr Macron's main concern was "not delaying the reconstruction and making it complicated - things had to be cleared up quickly".
It added that the process of designing a modern spire, with an international competition for architects, could have caused unnecessary delays.
"The president trusts the experts and approved the main outlines of the project presented by the chief architect which plans to reconstruct the spire identically," the Elysée said.
Read more:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53357792
Read from top.
is this the new form of "terrorism"?
The diocese of Nantes released images on Facebook in the wake of the blaze. It completely destroyed the grand organ at the Cathedral of St. Pierre and St. Paul, blew out the stained glassed windows at the front of the building, and consumed a valuable 19th-century painting that had been sent from Rome.
Read more:
https://www.rt.com/news/495186-nantes-cathedral-fire-arson/
If I were a French president, I would order a serious discreet protection system, complex surveillance and "visible" and "invisible" guards around all the cities in France... I would suggest that the destruction of national monuments is a new form of terrorism... And this, with the burning down of Notre Dame, is barely the beginning.
Presently there are events of "sabotage" in Iran as well. Care and surveillance need to be taken...
Read from top.
Brigitte macronade......
French First Lady Brigitte Macron suggested redesigning the iconic spire of Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral after a 2019 fire to resemble gilded male genitalia, former culture minister Roselyne Bachelot has claimed in her memoir ‘682 Days – The Hypocrites’ Ball’, released on Thursday.
Just a few days after President Emmanuel Macron’s administration allegedly lambasted her decision to have the fire-ravaged Notre Dame cathedral spire rebuilt as a replica of the old one, Bachelot was out at lunch with the president’s wife when the First Lady showed her “a project topped with a sort of erect phallus with its base surrounded with golden balls,” the book reveals.
The politician’s reaction was not included in the excerpt of the 682-page tell-all tome posted to social media on Thursday.
Bachelot insisted from the beginning of the discussions on rebuilding the spire that it must be “built identically to respect the Venice Convention,” she wrote. This displeased the president, who had wanted “a contemporary architectural gesture,” reasoning that the spire hadn’t been part of the original Notre-Dame cathedral.
“The Elysee is dreaming of an architectural gesture and accuses me of doing just as I please,” she wrote, adding that she defended her choice to the administration and ultimately prevailed.
Macron’s X-rated vision for the reconstruction of the spire was not the only weird one. British architect Lord Foster of Thames Bank proposed a “super-slender needle touching heaven’s clouds,” while others wanted to construct the whole thing out of glass or crystal, or top it with a greenhouse and beehives, or add a laser.
As culture minister, Bachelot was responsible for overseeing the repair of the beloved medieval landmark after it sustained heavy damage in the 2019 fire of mysterious origin. In July 2020, she confirmed that despite the president’s announcement in the days following the fire of a “competition” soliciting designs for a replacement, “a broad consensus has emerged for the identical reconstruction of the spire.”
French officials hope to reopen Notre-Dame in 2024 and complete the restoration the following year. The interior has already been partially restored, and construction on the roof and spire is set to begin this year.
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https://www.rt.com/news/569536-macron-notre-dame-phallus-memoir/
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