“We couldn’t accommodate them all, but they are there, in spirit” : under the nave of Notre-Dame, the Archbishop of Paris celebrated a mass on Wednesday, December 11 in the morning in tribute to the 340,000 donors who made it possible to rebuild the cathedral in five years after the fire of 2019.
Mostly drawn by lot, around 1,500 of them took their place in the cathedral and Mgr Laurent Ulrich erected them, in his homily, “as a symbol of the fraternity of those who gave for the recovery of this cathedral”. “Your efforts have been rewarded”, he also said, in the heart of the 12th century building rebuilt identically after more than five years of construction.
Near the main entrance, a plaque now salutes “the generosity of 340,000 donors from around the world” by distinguishing those whose contributions amounted to tens of millions of euros. The names of Bernard Arnault, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, François Pinault and their respective families appear there, as do L'Oréal, LVMH, the TotalEnergies Foundation and The Walt Disney Company.
But four days after the official reopening of Notre-Dame with pomp and heads of state, Wednesday morning's mass aims above all to celebrate the donations from anonymous people who flocked in numbers after the fire of April 15, 2019. “There was a tsunami of generosity”tells AFP Sylvie Bretones, general delegate of the Notre-Dame Foundation which collected almost half of the 846 million euros in donations. In total, 700 million were needed to finance the reconstruction project and the remainder will be used to restore other parts of Notre-Dame which really needed it.
According to a recent study by the Notre-Dame Foundation, which focuses solely on the donations it collected, nearly one household in a hundred in France put their hand in their pocket for reconstruction and two thirds of the contributions were lower at 100 euros, proof that the outpouring of generosity was well shared.
“Which is very beautiful”, analyzes Sylvie Bretones, “the very big patrons announced very quickly that they were going to massively finance the restoration, but that did not dissuade anonymous donors, businesses, local authorities from continuing to give for several months.” Proof, according to her, that Notre-Dame “transcends everything, cultural, religious, geographical or social differences”.
