Notre-dame workers flouted smoking ban

WORKERS mending the roof and spire of Notre-dame before it went up in flames last week have admitted flouting a smoking ban, amid claims of a string of safety lapses at Paris’s famed Gothic cathedral.

After picking up seven cigarette butts following the fire, police questioned roof workers for the construction firm whose staff admitted to having violated strict no-smoking rules.

“Indeed, certain colleagues did flout the ban every now and again and we regret it,” said Marc Eskenazi, a spokesman for Le Bras Frères, adding that workers lit up on the roof because “it was a bit tricky to get down”.

However, Mr Eskenazi insisted: “In no way did a poorly extinguished cigarette butt start the fire. Anyone who has tried to start a chimney fire knows that not a lot happens when you put a butt on an oak log.”

Prosecutors suggested a short circuit in a lift could have started the fire, but the newspaper Le Canard enchaîné, citing investigators, said a more likely scenario was a short circuit in electric cables in the spire, which were turned on in 2012 to ring temporary bells.

Police now believe human error, rather than a computer glitch, caused a catastrophic 35-minute delay in calling the fire brigade, after security guards went to the wrong part of the building and so dismissed the first fire alarm.

According to Le Canard, a mistake was made either by two agents or a security company employee who denies sending them to the wrong location.