Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It will be Emmanuel Macron's seventh and final visit to the Notre-Dame construction site today,
00:05five and a half years ago, after the fire devastated the cathedral.
00:08Macron's visit clearly televised, as you see on your screens,
00:13offering the world its first look inside.
00:17This before the landmark reopened to the public on December 8th.
00:19Notre-Dame's revamped interior kept a closely guarded secret until now.
00:24Joining me on the set is Richard Verley,
00:26a correspondent for the Swiss daily Blick.
00:30Hello to you, Richard.
00:31Across from him is Thomas van Utreve, a photographer.
00:35You've been covering the works of Notre-Dame these past five and a half years ago.
00:41I want to begin with you, Thomas.
00:43Talk to us a little bit about the work over these past few years that you've seen.
00:48Well, the first time I went in the cathedral, it was absolutely devastating to see the damage.
00:54We all feel a sense of awe and beauty when we walk in a cathedral.
00:59But when you walked inside, you could see right at the crossing,
01:01there was this horrible hole that had been ripped through by the spire collapsing.
01:06Many people saw that either on television or outside with their own eyes,
01:10leaving this sort of horrible wreckage in the middle.
01:13The first stage of the reconstruction was really about securing the monument,
01:17trying to keep it from falling down.
01:19There was sort of burnt scaffolding and loose rock and things like that.
01:23So they spent almost two years securing the cathedral,
01:27and then they could really start on the reconstruction.
01:29So the entire A-frames of the roof, which is called the forest because they're all out of oak,
01:38the spire itself had to be rebuilt, the roofs recovered,
01:42and then all the damage that happened through the fire.
01:44So we're talking about smoke damage, water from the firefighters,
01:49and on top of that, they just did a restoration that was badly needed too.
01:53So all of that happened in this five-year period.
01:56Yeah, and your first visit, give us a date, more or less.
01:59My first visit inside the cathedral was in November 2020.
02:03So they were already halfway through securing the cathedral at that point.
02:08Right. Richard, you've been covering this story.
02:11You can give a sort of an international audience feel for it.
02:15Has this captivated viewers and readers from abroad?
02:20It has, definitely.
02:21You remember the cover pages of all newspapers and magazines around the world
02:26after the fire of Notre Dame.
02:29And I'm just coming back from the USA.
02:30I was there for about a month during the presidential election,
02:33and people I was talking to about Donald Trump,
02:36they were asking me questions about Notre Dame, believe it or not.
02:40So about five or six persons I met,
02:42I'm talking about politicians, experts, university professors,
02:46they were asking me about, is Macron going to reopen Notre Dame?
02:49Is it true that Notre Dame will be reopened?
02:51I even met a person who has financially contributed, an American,
02:56financially contributed to the restoration of Notre Dame.
02:59A number of American people, including some billionaires,
03:03big names that we know have contributed money.
03:06So it was definitely, Notre Dame is a world monument.
03:10The fire was viewed around the world.
03:13The emotion was worldwide.
03:14And now I'm sure these photos of Notre Dame today will be seen.
03:18Why do you think it has so much appeal?
03:20Do we go back to Victor Hugo?
03:22Is it because, why?
03:24Well, I would say it's a trilogy.
03:26It is Paris.
03:28It is Notre Dame because of Hugo, I would say, the legend.
03:32And also because it's religion.
03:35I mean, it's a religious monument, though it is a Catholic monument,
03:38but it's a Christian monument before all.
03:41And the fact that it was destroyed or nearly destroyed,
03:45and that it could go down, finally it did not,
03:49but it was at that close.
03:50I mean, the suspense was there.
03:52You had the story, so remember those firefighters.
03:55There was a movie done after it, the firefighters rushing,
03:59and they were that close of eventually seeing
04:02the monument crumble in front of them.
04:04So you had everything, Paris, religion, Victor Hugo,
04:09and the suspense of the contemporary story,
04:12plus the rush to renovate,
04:13and the extraordinary work, thanks to photographer like Thomas.
04:17We have seen throughout those years, the restoration work.
04:21I mean, for example, some pieces of wood were brought in from Switzerland,
04:25from the Canton du Jura in Switzerland.
04:28And the Swiss press followed all the pieces
04:31from the moment the trees were cut
04:34to the time they were put in Notre Dame.
04:36So it's a fantastic story.
04:39Yeah, and all that combined sort of creates a sense of-
04:42Yes, because you've got the narrative.
04:44You've got the narrative of the destruction
04:47and of the renovation and the reconstruction.
04:50Because we should say Macron kind of marked the world by saying,
04:56we will be doing it in five years.
04:58You remember, very few people believed it would be possible.
05:01He appointed the general in charge of that.
05:04Unfortunately, the general passed away.
05:05He had an accident in the mountain in the Pyrenees
05:08about a year ago, I believe, or a bit more.
05:11But the fact that Macron put his mark as a leader saying,
05:15we should do it, and we will do it in five years,
05:18what is missing maybe at the end of the story
05:20is the Pope being in Notre Dame.
05:22I think he's not going to come.
05:24The Pope's not in Notre Dame.
05:25He will be in Corsica a few days afterwards.
05:28That would have been, in a way, the apotheosis.
05:31But if you look at your screens,
05:32we do have the French president Emmanuel Macron
05:34having a tour of Notre Dame
05:35alongside his cultural minister, Rachida Dati.
05:38Thomas, what Richard was talking about,
05:41why Notre Dame is so important,
05:44one of our reporters here at French Before
05:46did an in-depth series of reports on the restoration.
05:48And she mentioned that religion plays a large part,
05:51but among the artisans that were rebuilding it,
05:54there were non-believers.
05:55And they said they've worked on very important projects
05:58in the past, but Notre Dame is different.
06:01And to hear that from someone that's a non-believer,
06:03it also builds to this idea
06:05of there's something special about this place.
06:07Did you get that feel when you spoke to artisans?
06:10Yes, absolutely.
06:10I think I can add two things to what Richard was saying.
06:14And in addition to his trilogy,
06:16I would say, and this is speaking as a photographer,
06:18but I think it is universal, the power of images.
06:22That image of the spire collapsing
06:24was seen and transmitted around the world.
06:26I was in Paris the night of the fire,
06:28but I found out from people on the other side of the world
06:31who saw the images before I saw the smoke in real life.
06:35That went everywhere.
06:36And that actually links into a very long history
06:39of representing Notre Dame.
06:41Apparently, the first monument ever photographed
06:44in the history of photography is Notre Dame itself
06:47by Louis Daguerre back in the day, 1838 or 1839.
06:52And then what you were saying about the workers,
06:55the compagnons de devoir,
06:56some of them as they're called in French,
06:59many of them didn't have any religious link at all.
07:02I remember the crane operator, he had a Muslim last name.
07:05There were people from all different backgrounds,
07:08but all of them were touched by the beauty,
07:11the intricacy of the monument,
07:13the feelings that you get
07:14that are sometimes not linked to religion at all
07:17to be in an architectural masterpiece like that.
07:20And I think for a lot of the workers,
07:21it was sort of the work site of a lifetime for them.
07:25They were in something that was in the spotlight
07:29on a tight deadline where they had to put
07:31all their know-how into it.
07:32Did that create a sense of community among them?
07:35Teamwork or camaraderie?
07:37Yes, I would say so because in France,
07:40large complex projects can generate
07:42a lot of tension and drama.
07:44But here it was like people were really on task
07:47and they had to coordinate the work
07:49in quite difficult conditions.
07:51Not only was this reconstruction interrupted
07:54like all of our lives by the COVID-19 pandemic,
07:57but on top of that,
08:00the cathedral itself was heavily contaminated
08:03by lead particles.
08:04So the roof covering was all made out of lead.
08:07The coating on the spire was made out of lead.
08:09And when it burned, that vaporized
08:11and so lead particles just got everywhere.
08:14So you couldn't just show up at the work site
08:15and me as a photographer,
08:16I couldn't just show up and start taking pictures.
08:19All of us had to go through
08:20these really strict protocols,
08:22trainings on lead exposure.
08:24We had to take off our street clothes,
08:26change into a hazmat suit.
08:28In the beginning, we had to have
08:29assisted respirator masks.
08:31You were not allowed to drink water on the work site.
08:33You were not allowed to eat on the work site.
08:35If you wanted to go out for lunch,
08:36you had to throw out your hazmat suit,
08:38take a shower and start over again.
08:40So it was quite complex,
08:42but because of the pride in the monument
08:46and the special place it holds in the heart,
08:48not just in France, but I think wider than that,
08:51people sort of put their all into it.
08:53That's what I saw.
08:54Yeah, Richard, you want to respond?
08:57Well, I'm very much impressed
08:59because what I can feel,
09:02and I can feel it while watching these images,
09:05is that it's a monument given back to the world.
09:09It's actually really what's going to happen
09:12in the coming days,
09:13and especially for the opening day.
09:15It's a monument that belongs to the world in many sense.
09:18It belongs to the world because, we said it,
09:21it has a legend after it.
09:23It has history.
09:24It is a historical landmark,
09:26the history of Europe, especially.
09:29Napoleon was crowned emperor in Notre Dame.
09:33Everybody has seen this painting
09:36of Napoleon being crowned and Notre Dame.
09:39So I think those are very rare monuments.
09:41I can't actually think of another monument
09:44which is so much attached to the history,
09:47let's say, of the Western world.
09:49But the history of the Western world
09:51are for a long time dominated
09:52the history of the world generally.
09:55And when you think of the other side of the world,
09:58Asia, for example,
09:59the very first thing that Asian want to see
10:01when they come as a tourist in Europe and in France,
10:04they go to Notre Dame.
10:05So I believe, plus this tight schedule and the fact,
10:10and I would like to say a word,
10:13politically, economically,
10:15financially, France is stuck at the moment.
10:18The moment is difficult.
10:19We all know it.
10:20And as a political observer of France,
10:22every time I come here in France-Vancouver,
10:24most of the time,
10:26it's to talk about the difficulty
10:27that France is experiencing.
10:30And this being said,
10:32they managed to do this in a five years time.
10:35So this proves the best of France,
10:38the capacity of the country to unite,
10:40whatever your last name is,
10:42the capacity of bringing the best,
10:44engineers, architect, workers.
10:47So that is an excellent, I would say,
10:50portrait of the France
10:52that we would like to see more often on screen.
10:55Yeah, a day of triumph for France.
10:57You mentioned Napoleon was crowned there.
10:59Various French presidents have been buried.
11:02Charles de Gaulle, yes.
11:03And then Charles de Gaulle gave a speech
11:07in Notre-Dame for liberation.
11:09The last time I think a French president
11:10actually spoke from Notre-Dame.
11:12So we're gonna hear from Emmanuel Macron,
11:14presumably in several minutes time,
11:16to give a speech.
11:17What's the right tone that he needs to strike
11:19from not over-politicizing this?
11:23First of all, I hope for all of us
11:26that he's not going to speak for too long.
11:28That is something that Macron,
11:29that is a habit that he has to speak very at length.
11:32And I don't think it would be proper.
11:35He's got to be the president,
11:38let's say the CEO of Notre-Dame restoration.
11:42He's the one who put it on a time deadline.
11:44He's the one who make it a national rally,
11:47I would say.
11:48And I'm not thinking about politics when I say that,
11:51but he brought everybody to work for Notre-Dame.
11:55And that should be his role.
11:57He should not expand on political significance and so on.
12:00Because there, if he step on the political field,
12:04it will be not very much appreciated.
12:07I think he has to remain the guardian,
12:09the guardian of the French heritage
12:12and the guardian of Notre-Dame
12:14as a symbol of resurrection of France in a certain way.
12:18And then he should stop there
12:19because the political climate being so tense at the moment,
12:23whatever he say beyond that
12:25will be seen as political exploitation of this event.
12:29Right, a simple, straightforward speech, Thomas.
12:31But also reverence for the artisans that took part.
12:36Yes.
12:36So apparently there are over 2,000 workers
12:39that took part in the reconstruction.
12:41And a lot of that sort of happened in the shadows.
12:43So even though this monument is really in the spotlight,
12:46there are basically 2,000 anonymous people that-
12:50Thanks to them.
12:51Thanks to them, this whole thing happened.
12:53So Macron made his speech,
12:54but he's not the one that placed the stones back together
12:57or hewed timber logs.
12:59Now they have made a gesture towards them,
13:01apparently on the new weather vane,
13:04the rooster that's on the very top of the spire,
13:07they put a scroll.
13:08And inside that scroll,
13:09they've put the 2,000 names of the workers
13:12and sealed it inside a bit like a time capsule.
13:15But I'm hoping that Macron will also thank them
13:18for their incredible work and dedication.
13:21During your time covering the restoration works,
13:23what was your favorite moment,
13:26your favorite project,
13:28whether it was someone you met
13:29or something you were shooting?
13:32Actually, I think one of the strongest moments of emotion
13:36was actually back near the beginning
13:38in November or December 2020.
13:44I was trying to get all the angles I could
13:47to cover the cathedral.
13:48And this great hole that had been caused
13:50by the collapse of the spire
13:52was right at the top of the cathedral.
13:54I was wondering how it would get there.
13:56Eventually, one of the crane operators said
13:58he could move the sort of hydraulic arm
14:01and put me exactly at the top.
14:03And I could look down from where the spire used to be
14:07straight down into the hole.
14:09And I took a picture looking straight down
14:11that looks like this eye looking back out at you.
14:14And on top of it,
14:15you see sort of all the burned timbers and charcoal,
14:19sort of like a hellish landscape.
14:22And underneath, you could see what was left of the altar,
14:25sort of glowing through the hole between.
14:28And it brought together many things.
14:30It was number one,
14:30it was really looking at this wound
14:32at the heart of the cathedral.
14:34But also this is, as we've mentioned,
14:35it's sort of the epicenter of French history.
14:38So I felt like, you know,
14:39it's as if I had been brought
14:41into open heart surgery of grandma.
14:44And this is Francis' grandma.
14:46And here I was looking at the most instant,
14:48the most intimate moment.
14:50So it was sort of powerful,
14:51both as a photograph and as a symbolic moment.
14:54And that stays with me.
14:56That was a moment of a lifetime.
14:58Yeah, a very iconic landmark
15:00at a moment when it's very vulnerable.
15:02That was also in Emmanuel Macron's speech
15:05five years ago.
15:07And maybe something that we should say
15:08when we see this photo,
15:10these images of Emmanuel Macron
15:12apparently finishing his visit of Notre Dame
15:14alongside his wife and alongside Rashida Dati,
15:17who is a Muslim.
15:19I mean, Rashida Dati is born out of a Muslim family
15:22from Morocco.
15:23I don't know whether she practiced religion,
15:25but that's a good symbol as well
15:28to have her within the category.
15:30I think it's important to say,
15:31as you say,
15:32some workers definitely during the renovation
15:35were having a last name,
15:36which probably showed
15:38they are coming from a Muslim background.
15:40And it's important, again,
15:41it's a way of France showing its best
15:45when it is together,
15:47when it has a deadline
15:49and when it has a goal.
15:50And I think to me,
15:51that's the most important thing.
15:53The restoration of Notre Dame
15:55was a goal shared by everyone.
15:58Everyone shared and wished for Notre Dame
16:01to be renovated.
16:02I didn't hear a single voice saying,
16:05we spent too much money.
16:06That's the usual thing that you hear in France.
16:08There were actually criticisms
16:09about how much money they raised from the donation.
16:11Exactly, exactly.
16:13But the fact that the money was used for Notre Dame,
16:16nobody, I mean,
16:17no one that I heard
16:19was complaining about the fact
16:20that bureaucracy was hampering the work,
16:23that budgetary was overspending
16:26and so on and so forth.
16:27These are things that you usually hear in France.
16:29I mean, you know it perfectly.
16:31And this time it was not the case.
16:33And also we should say the church,
16:35the Catholic church has done a very good job
16:38at kind of accepting this renovation process.
16:43The owner,
16:44and I don't want to be wrong,
16:46but the owner of the cathedral
16:48is the municipality of Paris, I believe,
16:50the owner,
16:51or it's actually a public ownership.
16:53It doesn't belong since the French revolution.
16:56The cathedral and the monument
16:57do not belong to the church.
16:58I know it's not the church,
16:59but I thought it was the French state
17:00that owns the cathedral since the revolution.
17:03And by the way,
17:04the mayor of Paris is not alongside Emmanuel Macron.
17:09But that's important.
17:10So in a country where you always talk,
17:13where we always talk about,
17:14you know, laicity,
17:16the difficult relationship,
17:17secularism and so on.
17:18So it's a good image of a monument,
17:21which is deeply religious,
17:23Catholic,
17:24but it's also belonging to the whole French community
17:27and French people.
17:28Yeah, and we're getting these images.
17:30Very impressive.
17:31Which so much of that was kept under wraps
17:34to not spoil the final unveiling of Notre Dame.
17:38Thomas, while you were working there,
17:40did they put any conditions
17:41on what you could photograph,
17:42what you couldn't?
17:43What sort of guidance did you have?
17:45Yes.
17:45Well, specifically to try to build up to the suspense,
17:50there were three photographs in total
17:51that were given special access to the cathedral
17:53and they didn't want any of us taking pictures
17:56from September onwards
17:58so they could take the last suspense.
17:59How did you get that access to begin with?
18:01In the first place,
18:02I had a partnership between Robert-Thierre Notre Dame,
18:06which is the public entity,
18:07and National Geographic magazine.
18:09So that's how the whole documentation started.
18:15And so actually I've got the second issue
18:17of National Geographic covering the reconstruction
18:20will be coming out in the December issue.
18:22We published a first one in February of 2022
18:27that was a cover story on Notre Dame.
18:29I've also put together a book,
18:31sort of my whole relationship with Notre Dame.
18:35But the last time I was in there
18:37was for this National Geographic article
18:39and that was in the very end of June of this year.
18:43And so I could already see the reconstruction,
18:46the final form taking shape,
18:48but there was still quite a bit of scaffolding
18:50and some sort of cloth
18:53hanging there and there in protection.
18:54And so it wasn't this final reveal
18:57that we're seeing today.
18:58I think there's a bit of,
18:59not just reconstruction,
19:00but there's a bit of showmanship going on
19:02because it's such a big political and religious symbol.
19:05Yeah, and Richard,
19:06you were talking about
19:08when you were spending time in the U.S.
19:09about some of these people who are saying,
19:12is Emmanuel Macron going to open Notre Dame Cathedral?
19:14Very interesting.
19:15Well, even Elon Musk,
19:17if you follow Elon Musk's account,
19:21he recently posted images of Notre Dame being unveiled.
19:25And so he himself pays attention to Notre Dame.
19:29So I think in America,
19:31especially because it rings many bells in America,
19:33you know, religion,
19:35in that sense of great work together.
19:38And plus the fact that it is an icon of the world,
19:42now what may be more difficult for people
19:45to accept in the future,
19:46and I don't know if a decision has been made,
19:48is the fact that you will have to pay
19:50in the future to go into Notre Dame,
19:52which was not the case so far.
19:54I mean, entrance was regulated,
19:56but it was free.
19:57Now, if you ask people to pay for Notre Dame,
20:00and I don't know how much it will be,
20:02if it is decided,
20:03that may trigger some controversy.
20:05You know, in France,
20:06controversy will come at some point,
20:09but for the moment we don't have it.
20:11In Blick, have they been commissioned?
20:13Oh, we did, yes, yes.
20:14We did a lot of stories for Blick
20:16and for other magazine like L'Illustré,
20:19which is the equivalent of Paris Match in Switzerland.
20:23We did a number of stories.
20:24I personally did not visit the site,
20:26but my colleague came in.
20:28And again, there were some Swiss workers on it.
20:31And there was this story of the Swiss,
20:34you know, the carpenters who brought in the logs
20:38from Jura to be part of Notre Dame.
20:40And it was kind of a sense of pride,
20:42Jura being a Catholic canton that matters in Switzerland.
20:45And so it was seen as a contribution,
20:49a Swiss contribution to the rebuilding of Notre Dame.
20:52By the way, the architect which made the spine,
20:55as you say, Viollet-le-Duc,
20:57he's been controversial at his time
20:59because the spine was added to Notre Dame,
21:02but he passed away in Lausanne, Switzerland.
21:04So he had some part of him, a Swiss as well.
21:08Yeah.
21:09Thomas, what's going to happen now with your work?
21:12Are you going to continue to document it
21:14over the coming weeks?
21:15No, no.
21:16For me, really, I'll probably take a pause.
21:19I'm sort of closing this huge circle in my life on Notre Dame.
21:23It might come back to me.
21:24It's funny.
21:26This all started before the fire,
21:28is that I have a friend who's a retired photographer
21:31in his eighties,
21:32and he has a beautiful apartment with a window
21:35that just overlooks Notre Dame.
21:36It's near Shakespeare and Company, Rue du Petit Pont.
21:40Just across the river.
21:42Yeah, probably the most lovely view you can have.
21:44And so I've been visiting him since 2009,
21:48always taking pictures out of his window
21:50because it was so lovely.
21:51And actually when the fire happened,
21:53my first concern was, was he okay?
21:55Was there toxic smoke coming in his direction
21:58or something like that?
21:59So that was my first link with Notre Dame.
22:02And I've gone back,
22:04in addition to photographing inside the cathedral,
22:06going back and taking pictures from his house over the years.
22:09And at the last time I did that,
22:11he said something to me.
22:13He's lived with Notre Dame out his window for 30 years.
22:15And he said, you'll see Thomas,
22:18she makes a good companion in your life.
22:20She's made a great companion for me.
22:22So I'm sure this is not the end of the story.
22:24Maybe I'll do another chapter someday,
22:26but this is kind of like my historical moment
22:29where my life is now wrapped up with Notre Dame
22:33through this event.
22:34But I'll put a pause on it.
22:36And I have many other things that I'm fascinated in
22:38that I'll photograph.
22:39Tell us a little bit about your book.
22:40We're still waiting for Emmanuel Macron
22:42to make his way to deliver his speech,
22:43but tell us a little bit about what your book's about.
22:46Well, it's called 36 Views of Notre Dame.
22:49And this is actually an homage
22:51to the Japanese woodcut artist, Hokusai,
22:55because he did 36 Views of Mount Fuji.
22:57And I feel like Notre Dame is a bit like our Mount Fuji.
23:01It's this sacred spot in the center of the city.
23:04It's been represented by dozens
23:06or hundreds of artists over time.
23:09And so I really had to think,
23:10how could I represent it,
23:12both in the cityscape through time
23:15and at this historical moment of the devastation
23:18of the fire and reconstruction?
23:20So I took all that,
23:21starting with my pictures at Bernard's house,
23:23all of my pictures for National Geographic
23:25and the others,
23:26and I reduced it into only 36 black
23:29and white pictures of Notre Dame.
23:31It must have been a grueling process to choose.
23:33Because I probably took 50,000,
23:35if not more, pictures over the years.
23:38And so to make the book,
23:40it was about throwing away some of my favorites,
23:42some that I'd negotiated access for,
23:45or woke up early in the morning,
23:46or gone to the other side of France to go in a workshop
23:48when they were working on some piece of wood
23:52or something like that.
23:53All of that got thrown away
23:55to sort of boil it down to the essentials.
23:58We have a wordsmith and a photographer with us.
24:00Richard, is this one of those instances
24:02when an image is really a thousand times
24:04more powerful than words?
24:05Definitely.
24:06I mean, because it's all about architecture,
24:09it's all about monument,
24:12it's about its physical presence in the world.
24:14And the visceral emotion inspired.
24:16Yes, definitely.
24:17So there are, Victor Hugo managed,
24:20I mean, Victor Hugo,
24:21clearly with his words,
24:23managed to reach, I would say, Notre Dame level.
24:27But still, the image is the power of image,
24:30and especially because it comes out of a destruction.
24:33So, and keep in mind,
24:35we do not have,
24:36though we have some drawings and so on,
24:38we do not have photograph
24:40from the building of Notre Dame.
24:42So what is interesting is that
24:43this destruction and the rebuilding process
24:46was a way for us, for our generation,
24:49to rediscover how those cathedral were built originally.
24:53Because we were raised,
24:55I mean, I was raised without really knowing
24:58how Notre Dame was built,
25:00without knowing the technique,
25:02the way it was done.
25:04And that rebuilding documented this.
25:07And now we know how it was done at that time,
25:10because I believe,
25:11you will correct me if I'm wrong,
25:12that it was done the way it was done before.
25:16They attach a lot of pride to do it the same way
25:20that their forefathers did.
25:21So I think that's also an important lesson
25:24for the young generation,
25:26because it's not only a monument
25:28that has been rebuilt and renovated,
25:30it's a testament to how manhood
25:34managed to construct such a monument.
25:37Yeah, and Thoma,
25:38to play off what Richard was saying,
25:39those traditional techniques
25:40but married with modern technology.
25:43Absolutely, absolutely.
25:44This is sort of the best of France brought together.
25:49It really amazed me
25:50that the traditional know-how had been saved.
25:54Something like the compagnon de devoir,
25:56we'd call journeymen carpenters and stone carvers.
26:00This is like a medieval tradition
26:02of these guilds with apprentices
26:04that move from side to side
26:06and slowly learn their profession little by little.
26:11That still exists in France.
26:12So they didn't need to train a whole new generation
26:15of stone carvers and carpenters.
26:17They're already out there.
26:18That's been going on for years,
26:21and they can still go.
26:21So those people, they could pull in.
26:23But of course,
26:24France is a highly technological country
26:26that can make nuclear submarines
26:27and all sorts of things.
26:28And so they sort of managed to bring together
26:31the modern technology and the old know-how together.
26:35There was one other thing that really impressed me in this
26:38and made me think about the difference of our period
26:41and the period of initial construction of cathedrals,
26:45which is this multi-generational attitude.
26:48You have to imagine when Notre Dame was first built,
26:51it was 180 years
26:53between laying the first stone
26:54and looking like the building that we see today.
26:57Imagine that, that if you're building something
26:59that you know you'll be dead
27:01and your grandchild will probably be dead
27:03before it's completed.
27:04What do we build in this day and age that has that?
27:07So it really made me think,
27:09and I hope it makes other people think
27:11about sort of having these things
27:13that require multi-generational investment
27:15and passing the torch
27:17and carrying forward the know-how
27:18to build on something beautifully.
27:20So this generation has contributed
27:22to the rebuilding after the devastation of the fire.
27:25Can we keep that spirit going a bit?
27:27And those artisans that you were covering,
27:30how old were they?
27:30Were there younger ones as well?
27:32Yeah, yeah, yeah.
27:33So through the system of the compagnonage,
27:37the sort of journeyman thing,
27:39it starts quite young.
27:40Some people start at sort of a high school age.
27:44They live in dormitories, they go to workshops,
27:46and eventually they graduate
27:48to going to different work sites.
27:50They're employed by different companies
27:51and they build their skills up.
27:53So the ones that were already skilled enough
27:55to work on Notre-Dame, they were already there.
27:57So you had both sort of the little bit older masters,
28:00but a lot of really young people
28:02that were working on the work site.
28:03And is this, Richard, is this sort of appreciation
28:07for the techniques of bygone eras?
28:10Is that something that is appreciated
28:13or recognized abroad?
28:15It is recognized abroad
28:17and it is recognized in France.
28:19There are several, I believe,
28:20two or three medieval castle at the moment
28:23that they're being rebuilt with the original techniques.
28:26And they bring in a lot of young people
28:30from all over the world who came for either a month
28:33or six months or maybe longer to participate in it.
28:36And I think, I have not seen all the documentary filmed
28:39after the reconstruction of Notre-Dame,
28:42but that's also an example of how young people
28:46can find their way in reintroducing the old techniques.
28:51So as you say, it's not only intergenerational.
28:54To me, it is also a symbol of something concrete.
29:00We live in a time of technology with our phone.
29:03Everything is in the air, I wouldn't say,
29:06but Notre-Dame is not in the air.
29:07Notre-Dame is a solid construction.
29:10And I think that's a very important
29:12because we are witnessing a time when we will be able,
29:16maybe Mr. Musk wants to send rocket on Mars.
29:19So on the one hand,
29:19you have the rockets leaving to Mars potentially,
29:22and you have Notre-Dame being rebuilt.
29:24So that's a very important point.
29:26And in a way, it's very sad to say that,
29:30but it happened when we see those images now
29:33that the fire, the destruction,
29:35where maybe a chance for France to again rally
29:39and do that renovation,
29:41because my understanding is even if the fire had not happened,
29:44renovation was badly needed.
29:46Absolutely, absolutely.
29:48And in fact, well, Notre-Dame over its history
29:51has sort of been ignored at various moments
29:54when Gothic architecture fell out of fashion.
29:57And Victor Hugo paid a role
29:59of sort of getting people excited about the cathedral again.
30:02And that helped with Viollet-le-Duc's reconstruction
30:05in the 19th century that you early mentioned.
30:07But it happened again before the fire.
30:10There are quite a few philanthropic organizations.
30:13And one of the biggest one
30:14was the Friends of Notre-Dame in Paris,
30:16which is based in the United States.
30:18Now in France, they sort of deal with history
30:21and culture quite a bit differently.
30:25In France, everything is usually
30:26through the Ministry of Culture.
30:27They're supposed to pay for the maintenance.
30:29And Notre-Dame was getting a bit neglected.
30:32In the U.S., they don't even have a Ministry of Culture.
30:34And so they tried to rally philanthropists
30:37and things like this.
30:38Well, it turned out that the central French monument
30:40was actually getting help,
30:42more help from American philanthropists
30:44than it was getting the help it needed
30:47from the Ministry of Culture.
30:48So there was a lot of things
30:49that were sort of dilapidated and fallen down.
30:52This moment sort of crystallized the will of everybody.
30:56Everybody suddenly realized
30:57how important this monument was.
30:59They got all of these donations.
31:00So they repaired the fire
31:02and they've done these long-needed repairs
31:04at the same time.
31:05Yeah, and Richard, it's important to point out,
31:07as Tomo was alluding to,
31:09there might be some political polarization going on
31:12in certain parts of the world.
31:14After this fire, there was a pandemic.
31:16There's a war in the Middle East.
31:17There's a war in Europe.
31:18This is one of those few times, though,
31:20where I feel like a lot of people can rally together
31:23despite what their beliefs are,
31:25despite where they're from.
31:26True, true.
31:27And that's a good news.
31:28That's a good news.
31:29And look at this superb sky that we have today in Paris.
31:33Keep in mind that for certain recent events,
31:35we were not as lucky in the opening of the Olympic,
31:38for example, when it was raining hard.
31:40And again, as Tomo said,
31:42I mean, the image is it all.
31:44I mean, the fact that it's being reopened
31:47and Macron visited the place under such a sunny sky.
31:50Yes, I think that's why it's a good symbol for the world.
31:54Now, once again, it should be put in its own context.
31:59It's a Catholic cathedral in Paris, capital of France.
32:03There are other great monuments of the world.
32:06And certainly Notre Dame goal
32:07is not to shadow the other monuments.
32:10So each big monument deserve our respect,
32:13but maybe it could set a precedent.
32:15Maybe why not to pay attention
32:18to other monuments in the world
32:20who need badly rehabilitation and reconstruction.
32:25And it's the moment to move on.
32:26So I don't know whether there will be a Notre Dame effect,
32:30but I would wish so.
32:31Yeah, and Tomo, prior to Notre Dame,
32:34were you covering historical
32:36or archaeological photography primarily,
32:38or was this not?
32:39No, I was not.
32:41And so this was a new thing for me.
32:43I was already interested in history.
32:44So I'd done a book that was based on history.
32:48And so I like using old techniques,
32:51like I use an old 19th century camera with wet plates.
32:54And so some of that I did in Notre Dame.
32:58And I've done other projects
32:59that were completely different,
33:01where I did all the photography using a drone, for example.
33:04And so that too, I was able to eventually get permits
33:08to fly both over and inside Notre Dame
33:11to get new angles that we've never seen before.
33:14But actually, when I think about my photography,
33:17one of the things that this brings to mind
33:21to carry on what Richard was saying
33:22is not just historic monuments that need to be restored.
33:26And we have to think about
33:27one of the other things I've covered
33:29and that I'm covering now
33:30are natural landscapes.
33:32National parks actually grew up
33:34near a national park in California,
33:36Yosemite National Park.
33:37And when that park was founded,
33:39everything was about how monumental it was,
33:42that there were these giant sequoias
33:44that were like monuments of nature
33:45and that the cliffs were like cathedrals
33:48and rocks and things like that.
33:49And one of the things I thought about a lot
33:51when I was seeing Notre Dame is,
33:52you know, we see our environment burning.
33:54We see forest fires near Yosemite in California like that.
33:58Seeing that the destruction happened here
34:00and it sort of crystallized people to care,
34:02I would like to see that some transferred to nature too.
34:06There are monuments of nature out there.
34:08We're in this moment of sort of
34:09keeping our head in the sand,
34:10not noticing it,
34:11just like we did about Notre Dame before.
34:14If we can do this and we rebuild it,
34:16there could just be a click
34:17and all of a sudden we care
34:19and we care about nature and its grandeur
34:21and monumentality in the exact same way
34:23that we care about the monumentality of Notre Dame.
34:26Right, but Richard,
34:27there's a question about political will.
34:28We've seen a very active private sector
34:31in terms of playing a part with donations
34:33for this restoration,
34:35but it's a different thing to have a budget
34:38that's allocated.
34:39A lot of political uncertainty right now
34:40with the French government and its budget.
34:43So moving forward,
34:44do you think restoration works like this
34:46might be relying more and more
34:48on donations and private sector contributions?
34:52Well, I do not know
34:54because the problem of private donation
34:57is they go for the most well-known monuments.
35:01And the most well-known monuments
35:03are not only the one that you need to preserve.
35:05Actually, Emmanuel Macron has a plan
35:07headed by Stéphane Bern.
35:09There is this Stéphane Bern mission.
35:10He's a TV host, a well-known TV host,
35:13and he got funds from the French public
35:17through a lottery to finance restoration
35:21of unknown or forgotten monuments.
35:23So let's be clear.
35:26Monument, Notre-Dame, sorry,
35:28is also benefiting from the fact
35:30that it is one of the most well-known monument
35:33in the world and contribution went to Notre-Dame.
35:37Wealthy people gave money to Notre-Dame,
35:39but they would certainly not be interested
35:40to give it to some churches that people don't know.
35:43So the state has a role, the state has a role,
35:46and it should keep this role.
35:48Now, whether it shows that public-private partnership
35:53can work in France, I would say yes.
35:56Does it show that the French can rally together
35:58to do something in a very specific timing?
36:02Yes, we saw it for the Olympics.
36:04I mean, sorry to say,
36:05there is no direct relationship between the Olympic
36:07on the one hand and Notre-Dame on the other hand,
36:09but what did we see at the Olympic?
36:11We saw the capacity of the French to rally
36:14and produce the best possible event.
36:16Sorry, Richard, just to cut you off.
36:17Bravo, France.
36:18Yes, just to cut you off, Richard, sorry.
36:20People filing into Notre-Dame,
36:21I'm guessing those must be some of the artisans of 1300
36:24that are going to be honored today.
36:26It looked like they were getting a hero's welcome there
36:29from the people standing by.
36:31Thoma, how many of the people did you meet personally?
36:34Did you find friendships among them?
36:37Oh, I didn't keep count, but I mean,
36:40I just had so much admiration for the different ones I met.
36:43So I could go through a few of the different artisans
36:47that I went through.
36:48So I spent a lot of time with the paint restorers.
36:54So you have to imagine there's all these lateral chapels
36:57all along the edge of Notre-Dame.
36:59Some of them were dilapidated before the fire.
37:04A lot of them received water and smoke damage during the fire.
37:07They all had to be decontaminated of lead
37:12and then painted.
37:12And this is a very detailed job.
37:14So you can imagine sort of the big,
37:16heavy work of putting Notre-Dame together.
37:18It was also this very, very fine work,
37:21putting a gold leaf and fine grain
37:23down to the smallest detail.
37:25So the paint restorer is incredible.
37:27One of the other ones that was amazing
37:29were these rope access technicians, les cordistes.
37:32So you had many parts of the cathedral
37:34that they initially couldn't get scaffolding to.
37:37And you had people that were doing hard work
37:39suspended on a rope for hours of the day
37:42in the same conditions that I described earlier,
37:45lead contamination,
37:47wearing a full ventilation mask,
37:49not allowed to drink water or eat food during your shifts.
37:53So they were doing the job of a carpenter
37:56or getting a heavy drill
37:58or lifting off debris that had fallen,
38:01all while suspended in a climbing harness,
38:04wearing a helmet and things like that.
38:06There's hundreds of those.
38:07Those were the impress-
38:07Was there reluctance on their part?
38:11No, these people are quite special.
38:13A lot of them have mountaineering backgrounds
38:15and things like that.
38:16And they got into this
38:17because they're not scared of heights at all.
38:19And they like working on places like that.
38:22So they were amazing to deal with.
38:24And then to go back to some of the ones
38:25we talked about earlier,
38:27some of them really feel a resonance of history.
38:30So there was one group of carpenters
38:35that's sort of an international cooperation of carpenters.
38:38And their thing is to cut down the trees by hand
38:42in axes that they have forged in the traditional ways.
38:46And then to hew the timber,
38:48everything in the style without a single power tool,
38:51they put the whole thing together.
38:52So there's different parts of the woodwork in Notre Dame.
38:56Some was built by Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century,
38:59like the new spire.
39:00And that had been cut in sawmills.
39:02So they redid that in that style.
39:04And then there was the old part that burned down
39:06that dated back to the medieval times
39:08where they didn't have power tools.
39:10That they rebuilt using the techniques,
39:13the old axes, the old hand methods.
39:16So all of these, I mean, besides the architecture itself,
39:19just to be exposed to these different workers
39:22and the passions and the know-how that they had
39:24was just incredible.
39:25Right. We have a report on that, actually.
39:27Let's take a look at that.
39:28This is before the final plunge
39:31into what's being described as a worksite of the century,
39:34just days before the reopening.
39:36Let's take a look at that report.
39:41Under the eye of the West Rose,
39:43the great organ resounds once again
39:46as the construction hammers finally fall silent.
39:51It's 9.57, almost 10pm.
39:53Apart from the organ fan and a few little noises
39:56coming from the organ itself,
39:57you can't hear anything in the cathedral.
40:00It's really a great silence and a great privilege
40:02to have a quality of silence like that.
40:04Because even once the cathedral has been given back to worship,
40:07to the faithful, to tourists,
40:09obviously, we'll never have this quality of silence again.
40:14Bertrand Catiol has spent more than half a century
40:17at the service of Notre-Dame's lungs.
40:2352 years ago, almost to the day,
40:26I came to this gallery to meet Jean-Louis Boisseau,
40:29who was an organ builder.
40:31I was 17 and I fell in love with the cathedral.
40:36And its great organ,
40:37astonishingly safe from the fire.
40:39Neither the flames nor water from the fire brigade harmed it.
40:42However, it was contaminated by lead
40:44and had to be completely dismantled to be cleaned up.
40:47So it has to be tuned again.
40:50Laurent will be at the keys
40:51and he'll listen very carefully to each note.
40:54And he'll be able to say, for example,
40:56that this one is perhaps a little louder than the other.
40:59So we need to reduce the sound intensity of this pipe.
41:04And to work the pipes,
41:05you have to get 13 metres above the keyboard.
41:09It has to be earned,
41:10but a few hundred steps above lies the reward.
41:16Tuning an organ means giving it the right notes
41:18and ensuring that all the notes sound just right.
41:24Does it sound right?
41:25It sounds just right.
41:28When it doesn't, the offending pipe or pipes
41:30have to be lengthened or narrowed,
41:32a job done by hand.
41:35There's a natural phenomenon
41:37whereby two pipes of the same note
41:39that aren't completely in tune produce a beat.
41:43So it goes woo, woo, woo.
41:45And the aim is to remove this beating sound.
41:48With this tool, I can raise the pitch by doing this.
41:50It opens the pipe.
41:54Or I can mould it, tap on it, and the metal bends.
41:58You have to do that on every pipe on the organ.
42:00There are 8,600 or so.
42:03Nearly 8,000, in fact.
42:05But they have to be checked several times,
42:07which means six months' work,
42:09a small price to pay to restore the powerful sound
42:12of the largest organ in France.
42:18Just before that report, Tom, I cut you off.
42:21We were talking about the practices of these artisans
42:24are still filing into Notre-Dame,
42:26awaiting President Emmanuel Macron's speech.
42:29And you were saying, was this fascinating?
42:32Fascinating process of seeing things from a bygone era,
42:37things that have survived centuries
42:39and are still being practiced today
42:40and future generations learning them as well.
42:43Yes, absolutely.
42:44Like the stone carvers, for example.
42:47Now, there's also some secrets
42:49that came out of the Reconstruction,
42:50like in the case of the stone carvers.
42:53What I learned is in the medieval times,
42:56for bookkeeping reasons,
42:58each stone carver would sign their own stone,
43:00like a little signature,
43:01and then they could count out
43:02how much they would do at the end of the day and pay them.
43:05And all of the signatures were hidden inside the blocks.
43:09They were never facing outwards.
43:11So when the central vaults fell down,
43:14all these stones fell on the ground
43:16and you could see for the first time the signatures.
43:19And apparently researchers...
43:21So it's not...
43:21That was another interesting thing I want to say,
43:23is that what I encountered on the worksite
43:25were not just workers,
43:26but there were also sort of archaeologists and scientists
43:29that were working side by side with them
43:32and uncovering these mysteries
43:35that were suddenly accessible
43:37thanks to the Reconstruction.
43:39Richard, when we're looking at what Thomas is saying there,
43:43how do you try to get some of that mystery,
43:46some of that allure across on print?
43:51Well, there are two ways.
43:53First, there is a great story to tell.
43:57But as far as I'm concerned,
43:58I'm working for print media or online media.
44:02Magazines are definitely the best suited
44:05for these long narrative stories.
44:08When you work for a daily newspaper or website,
44:11what you've got to do is catch the attention of the public
44:15through certain secrets.
44:16That's why I was taking notes.
44:18You know, certain hidden things that people do not know.
44:22The difficulty, I must say, as a journalist,
44:25when you have such a reopening of a monument
44:27that everybody is going to write about,
44:30everybody is going to cover it,
44:32what else can you say?
44:33That's a bit tricky.
44:35So we've got to find ways of telling the public
44:39there are things that you don't know.
44:41And to me, the three things that people do not know,
44:44especially in Switzerland, the country for which I'm writing,
44:48is number one, the fact that it was a collective effort
44:53in a nation, I repeat, France,
44:55that doesn't have this reputation
44:57of bringing people together.
44:58It was a collective effort.
45:00It was done with high regard
45:03and even replicating old techniques.
45:05So it is the past bringing and coming to the present.
45:09And I think that's very important.
45:11And the third thing,
45:12and that would be the message of Emmanuel Macron,
45:15is what type of conclusion,
45:16what type of lessons can we draw from this huge work
45:20and from the reopening,
45:21but that we're going to wait
45:23for what the president has to say.
45:24Yeah, we see almost all of those 1300 artisans
45:27now inside Notre Dame Cathedral.
45:30Thomas, when you were shooting at this site
45:32and you were meeting some of them,
45:33did any of them have certain things
45:36they wanted from the government,
45:37certain common refrains about what the government should do
45:41or the statement or acknowledgement even?
45:45No, we didn't get into those kind of discussions.
45:50It's funny, France has their reputation,
45:53especially Paris, of the râleur,
45:55somebody that complains all the time.
45:57This is one of the few spaces in France
45:59where I almost never heard people complaining.
46:02That would be a bit of culture shock.
46:03Yeah, it would be a bit of culture shock.
46:05Now, that does not extend to the offices
46:08of the direction of the whole thing.
46:09I think there the râleur were well present.
46:12But actually amongst the workers themselves,
46:14you know, whatever you want to call it,
46:16esprit de corps,
46:17this like concentration, sticking to the task,
46:21it was quite remarkable
46:23and something that you don't see often in France,
46:26certainly, especially not in the dead centre of Paris.
46:28If you go a few steps out of Notre Dame,
46:30you're going to find people honking at each other
46:33and everything else.
46:34Would you call this a sense of duty?
46:37I think there was a sense of duty,
46:39sort of a historical calling,
46:42feeling like they were part of something bigger
46:44than themselves, you know.
46:46That can sort of bring you forward.
46:49And it was funny because they were all working
46:52for different companies.
46:54It's not like they were all employed by the state.
46:57There were many different small French companies
46:59that were sort of coordinating together.
47:01And that was also interesting
47:03because some of them often compete with each other
47:05for contracts.
47:06But since this was a bigger one,
47:09they actually had to work together
47:10on some of these things.
47:11And if it wasn't Notre Dame and with a hard deadline,
47:14I think there would have been a lot more room
47:16for disputes and conflict.
47:18Yeah.
47:19Richard, so we have the scene is set.
47:23The artisans are there.
47:24The president going to make the first speech
47:26from Notre Dame Cathedral in what,
47:28about 80 years now, I guess, if my math is correctly.
47:32What is the thing that he should say?
47:36I will certainly not advise the president
47:40to say anything.
47:41But what I expect is at least two things.
47:45First of all, precisely Macron to put the accent
47:50on the collective effort.
47:52That is the result of a collective effort
47:56from all range of French people,
47:58all range of technician, professionals,
48:02from the architect to the carpenter and so on.
48:05So this idea, and I think that's what he will do.
48:08We can expect that.
48:09This idea of a collective effort.
48:11And the second thing I would expect is for him
48:14to say that France is never as great
48:17that when it has a goal.
48:19When in French people look at, again,
48:21I am making the comparison with the Olympic.
48:24There was a goal, there was a deadline.
48:27You knew you had to be ready for a certain date.
48:30And the French are very good at that.
48:32They are very good when they have a common goal,
48:34when there is something of collective push going on
48:38and when they believe in the push.
48:40And that's the big difference here.
48:42You didn't only have a collective effort,
48:45but it was not an effort kind of imposed by the state.
48:48It was not something people were told to do.
48:51It is something people felt they had to do.
48:54And did Macron's popularity increase after the Olympics?
48:58I think yes, but for a very short of time.
49:01Very, very short of time.
49:02Yes, the answer is yes.
49:04Remember in the coming days after the Olympics, yes.
49:07But the difficulty of the Olympics is that
49:09they were politically spoiled by the dissolution
49:12of the National Assembly.
49:14And so we are now paying the price of another decision.
49:17But clearly the president should say,
49:20and I think it shows that this nation collectively
49:24has the capacity to achieve a lot of things,
49:26but if people believe in the goal
49:29that is in front of them.
49:30Emmanuel Macron walking in.
49:31Let's listen to the reception he's getting.
49:33So those are the workers, I guess.
50:03Emmanuel Macron meeting some of those artisans,
50:26shaking their hands, seeing them face to face.
50:29And we're seeing Notre Dame, Thomas.
50:33You were there.
50:35This is a Notre Dame that looks a bit different.
50:38You could say it's been cleaned up
50:40and some might even say in some ways unrecognizable, perhaps.
50:44Yes, especially the stonework here,
50:47which we're used to going into the Catholic cathedrals.