While Notre-Dame is due to reopen its doors from Saturday December 7 and Sunday December 8, the public will be welcomed from Monday 9. How are the volunteers responsible for managing the crowds within the cathedral trained?
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Queue management, gantries, wandering, future reservation application… To guide the crowd, volunteers will be on the front line when Notre-Dame reopens to the public. They are trained under the roof of the Collège des Bernardins, in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.
These volunteers will be identified with a blue vest. “We are counting on them to welcome all visitors and heritage visitors to the cathedral from the square. But inside you will also have pairs of volunteers from this growing community who will be able to do internal mediation“, explains Pauline Delhumeau, head of the volunteer network for Notre-Dame.
The participants did not want to miss the reopening, after the fire that occurred on April 15 and 16, 2019. “I was present, I was on the quays, praying and singing. Participating in the reopening and resurrection of Notre-Dame is a very beautiful project“, explains a future volunteer.
“On a slightly more personal level, I also find that it is a diocesan mission. We will be with young people, old people, retirees, working people“, says another.
A third participant said she had “training in art history“and wish”have additional experience and help with the reopening of Notre-Dame“. A last volunteer said “love the idea of welcoming people from all over the world, and making France shine“.
Father Henry de Villefranche, chaplain at Notre-Dame de Paris, emphasizes for his part that Notre-Dame remains both a historical monument and a place of worship. He mentions the fact of “articulate together the idea of visible, sensitive heritage, and the idea of a cathedral, which has an office to fulfill“. Volunteers will be hard at work from December 9.
A report by Frédérique Hovasse with Tania Watine.
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