The Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, proposed paying entry to the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, which will reopen its doors in December. A proposal that is not unanimous.
Notre-Dame Cathedral will reopen its doors on December 8 after more than five years of closure, caused by the fire which devastated the building in 2019. Reservations will be possible on the website to manage the flow of visitors. They should be open up to two days in advance for a fixed slot. If you do not have a reservation, you will have to queue. For masses, entry will be free, but within the limit of available places.
However, access to the cathedral was initially announced as remaining free, except for visiting the Treasury, the museum located inside the building. The Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, has just proposed charging tourists for entry. In his interview with Figaroshe assures that asking 5 euros to visit the cathedral is a good idea and will raise “75 million euros per year”. This money would be reinvested in the country’s religious heritage: “Thus, Notre-Dame de Paris would save all the churches of Paris and France. It would be a magnificent symbol,” she justified. This rate will not concern practitioners attending masses or services, but will only be imposed for cultural visits.
The minister made a point of recalling that in Europe, access to “the most remarkable religious buildings” was often subject to payment. In Italy, Great Britain and even Spain for example, this is indeed the case. To access the Duomo in Milan, the Medici Chapel in Florence, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona or even Westminster Abbey in London, you must buy a ticket. In France, the 45,000 Catholic churches have free access, except for the Basilica of Saint-Denis, considered a historic site with the tombs of the kings of France.
A distortion of the religious building?
This measure received the support of the Minister of the Interior, but also responsible for religion, Bruno Retailleau, who assured, on France Interthat it is useful especially if it can help “save a religious heritage to which we can be attached, whether we believe in heaven or not, because quite simply, it is the French landscape “. Emmanuel Macron recalled in September 2023 that 5,000 religious buildings were in a state that could endanger their sustainability and therefore needed intervention.
This proposal, however, poses a problem. Firstly from a legislative point of view, the 1905 law of separation between Church and State guarantees that visits to churches and cathedrals which are classified as historical monuments, such as Notre-Dame, “cannot give rise to no taxes or fees.
For some, charging for entry also means distorting religious heritage. For Alexandre Gady, heritage historian and member of the national commission for architecture and heritage, on franceinfothis decision would be a “philosophical rupture”, which goes against “cultural democratization”, defended by the Ministry of Culture since its creation. According to the historian, taking this step would be like making a church “a museum”, especially since museums themselves are sometimes free. “In fact, we are in a process of accounting thinking which is devastating us in this country. I believe we are looking in the wrong place for the source of this money,” he lamented. He recalls that paying entry will also lead to a new set-up with the installation of cash registers and staff who check tickets, which according to him “is an idea which is far from heritage”.