NOTRE-DAME (2024)

On April 11, 2019, sixteen massive copper sculptures representing the twelve apostles were removed from the spire of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which had been under renovation for a year. The removal was to allow restoration teams to access the top of the spire. Considerable work filmed by TF1 teams. That day, Michel Izard and his cameraman were the last people to film the spire's framework before it succumbed to the flames on April 15, 2019.

On April 15, 2019, a fire ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, destroying its framework, roof and spire before the shocked eyes of passers-by. Arriving at the scene, the French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech: he committed to rebuilding the monument.

The security measures for the cathedral began the day after the fire in order to prevent the monument from collapsing. After the firefighters' battle to extinguish the flames, it was necessary to immediately establish an inventory of the damage and begin work to save the cathedral.

In large Gothic churches, flying buttresses serve to counterbalance the weight that the vault and the framework exert on the walls, by creating an equivalent thrust. But since the loss of the roofs, they weigh with all their weight on the walls. To cancel this thrust, the architects decide to relieve the flying buttresses of their own weight by placing arches below them. At the end of the complex and long consolidation phase, an invisible enemy comes to interrupt the work on the site: lead dust.

At the time of the fire, the spire of Notre-Dame de Paris was being restored. External scaffolding was used to meet a safety objective in order to carry out work at height. This steel monster withstood the fall of the spire, but some of its parts placed closest to the blaze were deformed and welded by the flames. The risks it poses to the entire cathedral are innumerable: if it were to collapse, it would take with it the entire crossing that it grips in its metal claws. The cathedral cannot therefore be made safe as long as the scaffolding is overhanging it. Its dismantling is a priority for the companions, but it must be prepared meticulously and with great caution.

Two years after the fire at Notre-Dame, thanks to the hard work of hundreds of workers and craftsmen, the cathedral is no longer in danger of collapsing.