Hundreds of millions of euros pledged to restore Notre-Dame

French tycoons and other donors have pledged hundreds of millions of euros to restore Notre-Dame cathedral after the Paris landmark was gutted by fire and President Emmanuel Macron vowed to rebuild what he called “epicentre of our life”. On Tuesday the Paris prosecutor said there was no evidence of arson and that investigators were working on the assumption that the blaze was an accident. He said the investigation would be “long and complex”.

Earlier the Paris fire brigade confirmed that the fire had been extinguished, about 15 hours after it erupted on the roof of the 12th-14th century Gothic masterpiece. With France in mourning for its devastated cultural symbol, the main political parties announced a truce and suspended campaigning for the European elections in May. Notre-Dame’s stone structures, including the two famous belfries at the west end of the cathedral, are mostly intact and the large stained-glass rose windows on the west and south sides of the building appear unbroken.

Church officials said some treasures and relics were saved, but the authorities have yet to assess the damage to wooden structures inside the main body of the cathedral, including the wooden choir stalls. The blazing roof and the 750-tonne flèche - a spire of wood and metal - collapsed into the centre of the building.

The Arnault family, owner of luxury group LVMH, pledged €200m to help with the restoration efforts. “The Arnault family and the LVMH Group, in solidarity with this national tragedy, are associated with the reconstruction of this extraordinary cathedral, symbol of France, its heritage and its unity,” a statement said on Tuesday.

The Pinault family, owner of luxury conglomerate Kering and family holding company Artemis, pledged €100m. “Faced with such a tragedy, everyone wishes to restore life to this jewel of our heritage,” said François-Henri Pinault, president of Artemis.

Mr Macron stood in front of the still-burning cathedral on Monday night to announce a national subscription fund to rebuild Notre-Dame. “We were able to build this cathedral more than 800 years ago and over the centuries to enlarge it and improve it, and I tell you very solemnly this evening, this cathedral — we will rebuild it, all together,” Mr Macron said.

“Notre-Dame de Paris is our history, our literature, the life of our imagination, the place where we have lived all our great moments, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations. It’s the epicentre of our life,” he said. “It’s a cathedral of all the French even when they have never been to it. This history is ours, and it is burning.”

Mr Macron’s La République en Marche (LREM) party said on Tuesday it had suspended campaigning for the European elections. “This is a moment of profound sadness,” said Nathalie Loiseau, the former Europe minister who heads the party’s list.

The far-right Rassemblement National of Marine Le Pen, which is close behind LREM in the opinion polls, announced a 24-hour truce. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of the far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, said he was “not in the mood for politics for at least 24 hours”.

Anne Hidalgo, Socialist mayor of Paris, pledged €50m from the city itself and proposed a “large international donors’ conference that could be held at the city hall”.

Attention will now turn to discovering the cause of the blaze - which may have started in the scaffolding or the loft where reconstruction and restoration work was under way - as well as stabilising the ruins and starting reconstruction.

“What begins now is to analyse and make an assessment of the extent of the damage inside, if the structure has been affected, and afterwards to begin reconstruction,” said Benjamin Griveaux, a French member of parliament for Mr Macron’s party who resigned as government spokesman to contest the Paris mayoral election next year.

“Of course it’s a very strong symbol for French catholics, but it’s also a symbol for the nation, it’s a symbol for the world, this flamboyant Gothic art of Christianity and in the end it’s the building for which the words ‘world heritage’ were invented.”

Source: ft.com