The President of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici, on Wednesday called for an administrative investigation "
now
" to unravel the "
tangled responsibilities
" between the State, national monuments and the clergy that may have contributed to the 2019 fire in Notre -Lady of Paris.
To read also: Notre-Dame de Paris: the origins of "the fire of the century" remain mysterious
In its report published the same day, the Court of Auditors points to insufficient management of fire risks before April 15, due to a complex sharing of responsibilities between these different actors.
"
It is absolutely necessary now to launch an administrative investigation
", declared its president on France Inter, because "
the management of a cathedral is very complicated, there is a division of the responsibilities between clergy, city of Paris and national monuments
".
"
The consequence is that the responsibility of the cathedral resulted from procedures and contracts which were not very clear, with rather weak means and totally entangled responsibilities
", declared the former socialist Minister of the Economy.
"
It is regrettable - and the Court asks that this take place now - that there was not an administrative inquiry to draw the lessons, because
" there are so many other monuments, cathedrals and it is necessary to avoid that it happens again, ”he insisted.
Pierre Moscovici said he was "
surprised
" that the Ministry of Culture did not immediately conduct this investigation to "
see if there was a failure, or not, in the conduct of the site
"
.
"
Especially since you discover that the restoration work is entrusted to the same companies after and before the fire
".
"
This is not a questioning of the Ministry of Culture,
"
he said.
But
“
there is not a reaction to the height to learn the lessons, untangle the web of administrative and financial processes, see if there has been sufficient security spending.
And our idea is rather than not
”.
According to the first results revealed in the summer of 2019 of the investigation still underway to determine the causes of the fire, it would probably not be of criminal origin but accidental: short circuit, cigarette butt left on the site.
But poor maintenance of the electrical installations and a series of malfunctions on the evening of the disaster would have contributed to making the fire more serious than it should have been.
