Notre Dame, French Court of Auditors wants to open investigation into use of donations

The president of France’s Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici, has called for an investigation into the use of donations collected for the reconstruction of Notre Dame. As of Dec. 31, 2019, the collection had mobilized as many as 338,086 donors, who have given a total of 824 million euros.Moscovici is now calling for clarity on transparency and how these funds are being used. “The management of a cathedral is very complicated,” Moscovici told Le Figaro newspaper, “and the responsibilities are divided between the diocese, the City of Paris, and the National Monuments Authority. The consequence is that responsibilities arise from procedures and contracts that are not very clear, with rather weak instruments and intricate responsibilities.”

Moscovici’s concerns come after the Court of Auditors presented a report noting that “there is room for improvement on the transparency with which funds are used” that are managed by the public body that, within the French Ministry of Culture, must manage the cathedral reconstruction process. There is a risk that the body (which is called the “Public Entity in Charge of the Preservation and Restoration of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris”) is using donation funds for its ordinary operation, which requires 5 million euros a year with which the entity, headed by Jean-Louis Georgelin (a retired former army general), must pay the salaries of 39 employees and the rent of premises in the seventh arrondissement. “To put it simply,” Moscovici said, “we don’t believe that the donors wanted to finance wages and rents that have no direct relationship to the construction site.”

In fact, the law enacted on July 16, 2019 to regulate donation funds stipulates that the resources derived from the collection “shall be used exclusively to finance the conservation and restoration works of Notre-Dame Cathedral and its furnishings, of which the State is the owner, as well as to finance the initial and continuing training of professionals who have special skills required for these works.” And as a result, the Court of Auditors pointed out, for its ordinary operation the institution should receive resources directly from the Ministry of Culture, on which it depends.

Notre Dame, French Court of Auditors wants to open investigation into use of donations

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