Justice continues to investigate the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris and its pollution

Four and a half years after the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris, no indictment has been issued in the investigations into the causes of the disaster - the accidental route remaining favored - and the possible lead pollution caused. Investigations carried out by three investigating judges from the Paris public health center are continuing to determine the origin of the fire on April 15, 2019, while new expertise has been ordered, AFP learned in April from a judicial source. “Some aim to refine the area and the moment when the flames start. The others aim, by analyzing the seals, to determine the material causes of the fire,” it was specified. Requested by AFP on Tuesday, the judicial source confirmed that this judicial investigation was still in progress, without indictment.

At the end of the preliminary investigation, before the referral to the investigating magistrates, the Paris prosecutor at the time, Rémy Heitz, indicated favoring the accidental track, evoking a poorly extinguished cigarette butt or an electrical malfunction. Nothing seems to support the criminal trail since then. “Over the past year, all of the areas have been cleared” without revealing “any new element likely to be exploited,” the judicial source underlined in the spring.

On April 15, 2019, the building, more than 850 years old and famous throughout the world, then undergoing restoration work, caught fire and lost its spire, its roof, its clock and part of its vault, which were destroyed. by the flames. Several failures in the cathedral's security were identified, notably in the building's alarm system, which contributed to delaying the call to the firefighters on the day of the fire, or in the electrical system of a elevators. These malfunctions were probably not the cause of the fire, but could have allowed the flames to spread throughout the building.

Since March, justice has also been investigating the potentially harmful consequences for health of this fire with global impact. Two Parisian investigating judges are thus responsible for a complaint filed in June 2022 by the Henri Pézerat association for the defense of health in connection with work and the environment, the CGT union and two parents of students, accusing the authorities for not having taken all precautions to avoid contamination linked to lead pollution caused by the fire.

The judges are investigating possible endangerment, both of local residents and of the workers who decontaminated the site, according to the judicial source. The CGT departmental union announced on its website in mid-November the hearing of its general secretary as a civil party on September 8 by the investigating magistrates. “The two and a half hours of hearing made it possible, based on precise data and facts, to argue on the dangerousness of lead and on the serious failings of the authorities in charge of the health of workers and the population,” indicates the syndicate.

A representative of the Henri Pézerat association was also interviewed, according to a source close to the matter. According to another source close to the case, the same judge is appointed in both cases in order to “have an overall vision” of the subject. Some of the plaintiffs took part in a protest rally on Thursday in front of the cathedral against the identical reconstruction of the spire of Notre-Dame, that is to say with lead ornaments. In their complaint, they estimated that in the blaze, 400 tons of lead from the roof and spire of Notre-Dame had gone up in smoke, or “nearly four times the annual emissions of lead into the atmosphere, in the whole of France »