Notre Dame reconstruction, clash over bill that would like to bypass preservation rules

The political clash over the reconstruction of Notre-Dame is flaring up in France: the bone of contention is the bill that would grant the government the option of skipping the rules of guardianship so as to speed up the process that will lead to the Paris cathedral getting a new roof. Specifically, theprocess came to an abrupt halt last June 4 following a clash between the House and the Senate.

The clash centers on Article 9 of the bill, the one that would allow the government to bypass preservation and urban planning regulations. Strong disagreements between members of the two assemblies, with “a part of the deputies refusing,” reads a note from the Senate Culture Committee, “to accept the Senate’s deletion of an unnecessary and dangerous article that has raised the concern of heritage specialists,” have caused the legislative path to stall. The chairwoman of the Senate Culture Committee, Catherine Morin-Desailly, laments the fact that “the entirety of the provisions adopted by the Senate in order to enrich, clarify and legally secure the articles of a hastily drafted bill has been erased with a stroke of hand.” And Senator Alain Schmitz, assigned by the Senate to monitor theprocess, pledged to “check the nature and scope of the measures taken by the government within the framework of the construction site of this symbolic monument of our national heritage” and to “verify that no euros spent by the state on the restoration of Notre-Dame penalize other construction sites and other monuments.” Finally, Schmitz deplored the fact that “compliance with the rules relating to the protection of heritage is not the subject of unanimous consensus among parliamentarians.”

The Senate had in fact transformed the first bill to make it more compliant with the norms, but the disagreement of the deputies stopped all operations. It was, after all, a legislative project (several senators point out) made in haste and in the wake of an announcement by the president of the republic, Emmanuel Macron, who would like to see the construction site closed within five years. Too short a time frame, according to all the experts.

Pictured: the Notre-Dame Cathedral after the fire. Ph. Credit

Notre Dame reconstruction, clash over bill that would like to bypass preservation rules

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