Five years after the fire of Notre-Dame, the bedside cross soars again into the Parisian sky

Who had noticed it before the disaster which destroyed the roof of Notre-Dame in 2019? Remember this magnificent wrought iron cross which stands again today above the apse of Notre-Dame de Paris? Friday May 24, this “single survivor of the fire in the great attic” as Philippe Jost, president of the public establishment Rebâtir Notre-Dame de Paris, describes it, was blessed then hoisted to the top of the choir frame. This has been completely rebuilt identically, is now covered with its new lead roof and therefore regains its ridge decoration.

Fallen at the start of the fire, twisted, the cross, a masterpiece of ironwork designed in the 19th century by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, was restored in the Fer, Art&Forges workshop in Calvados, then its gilded decorations to the sheet by the Arcoa company. “It is a great joy and a great honor to bless her, on this site whose technical complexity also leaves its share of emotion,” declared Mgr Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas. “His outstretched arms tell us that the cathedral welcomes us all,” he concluded during the brief ceremony.

Before one of the mobile cranes lifted this 12 meter high and 1.5 tonne element, Julien Soccard, from the UTB company, responsible – with three others – for the restitution of the roof covering and ornaments of the choir, insisted on the “Notre-Dame spirit” which reigns within the team. A spirit made of “collective emulation, personal investment and the obligation to succeed”.