1% not getting Notre Dame over hump
Small donors are ones helping fund less-glam cleanup
PARIS — The billionaire French donors who publicly proclaimed they would give hundreds of millions to rebuild Notre Dame have not yet paid a penny toward the restoration of the French national monument, according to church and business officials.
Instead, it’s mainly American and French individuals, via Notre Dame charitable foundations, that are behind the first donations paying the bills and salaries for up to 150 workers employed by the cathedral since the April 15 fire that devastated its roof and caused its masterpiece spire to collapse. This month they are handing over the first private payment for the cathedral’s reconstruction of $4 million.
“The big donors haven’t paid. Not a cent,” said Andre Finot, senior press official at Notre Dame. “They want to know what exactly their money is being spent on and if they agree to it before they hand it over, and not just to pay employees’ salaries.”
Almost $1 billion was promised by some of France’s richest and most powerful families and companies, some of whom sought to outbid each other, in the hours and days after the inferno. It prompted criticism that the donations were as much about the vanity of the donors wishing to be immortalized in the edifice’s fabled stones than the preservation of France’s church heritage.
Francois Pinault of Artemis, the parent company of Kering that owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, promised $112 million, while Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of French energy company Total, said his firm would match that figure.
Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury giant LVMH that owns Louis Vuitton and Dior, pledged $224 million, as did the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation of the L’Oreal fortune.
None of that money has been seen, according to Finot, as the donors wait to see how the reconstruction plans progress and fight it out over contracts.
The reality on the ground at Notre Dame is that work has been continuing around the clock for weeks and the cathedral has had to rely partly on the charity foundations to fund the first phase of reconstruction.
The Friends of Notre Dame de Paris was founded in 2017, and its president, Michel Picaud, estimates 90% of the donations it’s received came from American donors.
“Americans are very generous toward Notre Dame and the monument is very loved in America,” he said.
The first private check toward the rebuilding, according to Picaud, is being transferred by the foundations for $4.1 million. That also includes funds from mainly small French donors, collected by the sister Notre Dame Foundation. The French state has also paid funds toward the massive consolidation operation.
While the billionaire donors delay signing their checks, the workers at the cathedral face the epic task of cleaning up the lead poisoning that has become an issue for the Parisian island on which Notre Dame is located.
An estimated 300 tons of lead that made up the cathedral’s roof melted or was released into the atmosphere during the fierce blaze, which sent out toxic dust. The city’s regional health agency says high levels of lead are now present in the soil of the island, the Ile de la Cite, and in nearby administrative buildings. It has recommended that all pregnant women and children under 7 living nearby take blood tests for lead after an abnormally high level was detected in a child in the area.
Two dedicated workers have been cleaning the toxic lead dust from the cathedral’s forecourt for weeks, and up to 148 more have been cleaning inside and outside the edifice as well as restoring it, according to Finot.
Workers are building a wooden walkway so they can remove 250 tons of burnt-out scaffolding that had been installed before the fire for the ill-fated restoration of Notre Dame’s spire. They will then replace the existing plastic protection with a bigger, more robust umbrella roof. After that, they will begin reconstructing the roof and vaulting.
Finot said this process will take months and will be paid in part by the Friends of Notre Dame and other foundations.
This comes as the French parliament is slowly debating amendments to a new law that would create a public body to expedite the restoration of the cathedral and circumvent some of the country’s famously complex labor laws.
French President Emmanuel Macron has said the work should be completed within five years — a deadline many French architects say is overly ambitious.
A spokesman for the Pinault Collection acknowledged that the Pinault family hadn’t yet handed over any money for the cathedral’s restoration, blaming that on a delay in contracts.
“We are willing to pay, provided it is requested in a contractual framework,” said spokesman Jean-Jacques Aillagon, adding the Pinault family plans to pay via the Notre Dame foundations.
The LVMH Group and the Arnault family said in a statement it was signing an agreement with Notre Dame’s foundations and “the payments will be made as the work progresses.”