"What the fire spared, the diocese wants to destroy ..." It is under this shock title that more than a hundred personalities, including the host Stéphane Bern, the academician Jean-Marie Rouart or the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, have signed for a column published in Le Figaro and La Tribune de l'Art on Tuesday. At issue: the interior redevelopment project of the cathedral, which falls to the diocese of Paris unlike the restoration, entrusted to the public establishment. The text denounces nothing less than a "project which completely distorts the decor and the liturgical space".
If this plan has not yet been fully disclosed, a lot of information has filtered through indiscretions.
In this regard, the English were the first to fire and launched hostilities, the Daily Telegraph denouncing a few days ago the creation in the cathedral of a "politically correct Disneyland".
Concretely what is it about, in view of the reopening in 2024?
Among the subjects which annoy: the abolition of the majority of the confessionals in the side chapels and the installation
“Objects of contemporary art, which will interact with old paintings from the 16th and 18th centuries”
,
as detailed for example by Father Gilles Drouin, in charge of the project by the Archbishop of Paris, Mgr Michel Aupetit, who has since resigned , because accused of an affair with a woman.
"It's rather grotesque"
But these are not the only ones: the projection on the walls of biblical messages in different languages intended for tourists is also shocking.
Or again the installation of a new lighting system, at face height and modifiable according to the seasons, and that of benches on casters, equipped with candles, in place of the old chairs… “The same
mediation devices
at the fashion (and therefore already terribly out of fashion) that we find in all
immersive
cultural projects
where very often silliness competes with kitsch ”, estimates the text of the forum.
“Our English friends are right: according to details that I have been able to obtain, it is Disneyland.
The projections on the walls, the grazing lights, the removable benches, the displacement of the confessionals… it is not possible.
It is wanting to be modern in order to be modern.
In the end, it's rather grotesque, persists Stéphane Bern, joined yesterday by phone after signing the platform.
Fortunately, the ministry opposed changing the stained glass windows.
I am not against making improvements, but without distorting.
I think that people especially want to find Notre-Dame as they knew it.
"
"It won't be Disneyland"
In the diocese, on the eve of the examination of the project, no one wanted to provide an “official response to the platform” to preserve “the serenity of the debates”. But no, “it won't be Disneyland”. “There is no question of touching the very essence of Notre-Dame which is to pray, celebrate, welcome, we slip anyway. No doubt, however, it is possible to improve things that were not optimal before the fire, such as the comfort of the faithful. "
The debate will perhaps be partly settled this Thursday following the meeting of the National Commission for Heritage and Architecture.
Composed of around thirty experts and elected officials, it will give an advisory opinion on the file, before the Ministry of Culture decides.
Positive, negative, or "subject to modifications", it risks in any case continuing to generate a lot of ink in the days to come ...
