For the Paris Olympic Games, the Notre-Dame spire will be ready

The spire of Notre-Dame de Paris, ravaged by the 2019 fire, will be “clearly visible” in the sky at the time of the Olympic Games, promised Wednesday Philippe Jost, who heads the public establishment responsible for the reconstruction project. Designed by the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century, it collapsed on April 15, 2019 in a spectacular fire, the images of which were broadcast live, sparking global emotion.

The spire reappeared for Christmas with its cross and its rooster in the sky of Paris but still surrounded by scaffolding, showing “that one of the great wounds of the fire was healed,” said Philippe Jost on Wednesday on Radio Classique.

The removal of this scaffolding “will begin during the spring and it will be sufficiently well advanced so that by the time of the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11) when there will be a lot of people in Paris, this arrow will be clearly visible in the sky from Paris,” he said.

It “will make it possible to close the vault of the transept crossing and to finish clearing the interior space of the cathedral at the precise location where we will then reassemble a step which will itself support the altar,” he said. -he adds. The reopening of the cathedral is scheduled for December 8, 2024.

The cathedral reconstruction project must continue during the Olympic Games - which will be followed by the Paralympic Games from August 28 to September 8 - but public access to the three portals of the cathedral and the main adjacent street will be "ensured" in coordination with the police headquarters, according to Philippe Jost. Legal investigations into the origin of the disaster are continuing. At the end of the preliminary investigation, the accidental route was favored.