Chain emails continue to circulate, claiming that the truth is being hidden from us. Screaming about conspiracy changes nothing, on the contrary.
The intense joy of the solemn reopening of the cathedral has revived the abundance of questions which, from the first days, in April 2019, had surged on social networks and in conversations at dinners in town. Was the disaster due to a natural cause or a malicious act, a terrorist action?
However, very quickly – too quickly, perhaps – the hypothesis of criminal intent had to be officially ruled out by the authorities. “The first reports from firefighters and investigators on site quickly ruled out the hypothesis of a voluntary act” we could read in all the press the following days. Moreover, the investigation immediately opened showed the color. It would relate exclusively to “unintentional destruction by fire. » Involuntary, any malicious human intervention was therefore immediately excluded from the field of investigation. This was obviously moving quickly, at a time when, quite naturally, we did not have to provide any argument duly supported by the facts to allow us to decide so peremptorily. As a general rule, there is nothing better to arouse suspicion than the haste in seeking to reassure populations. We still know nothing about the event, the drama, its ins and outs that we deliberately exclude a whole possible field of explanations. This always has the opposite effect to that sought, since the assertion can only seem gratuitous as long as we do not have solid, verifiable arguments capable of making it absolutely indisputable. I remember a tragedy on which I worked a lot: the death of Pierre Bérégovoy, which occurred on May 1, 1993. He was not yet admitted to Nevers hospital, so no examination had been carried out. carried out, no act of investigation carried out, that the official dispatches – yes, official, Prefecture of Nièvre, Palais de l'Élysée – affirmed that it could only be a suicide. Here too, the haste obviously only aroused distrust.
Five years after the fire at Notre-Dame, it seems that no technical, scientific response has been provided, proving beyond any possible doubt the accidental theory, reducing once and for all the suspicion of criminal intent. And this is how, in recent days, doubts have resurfaced. Here, again, an initiative taken at the beginning only succeeded in fueling the latent fire: skeptics, those unconvinced by the imposed “truth” found themselves excluded from social networks. Clumsy and above all stupid initiative. Today, therefore, the reservations expressed then resurface, often coming, let us admit, from people with a certain experience, either of these exceptional projects, of the rigorous, even finicky, regulations which govern them, or even having 'an expertise on the fires themselves, their appearance, their propagation, their appearance depending on the materials concerned.
Of course, however detailed and well-argued these accusations may be, they do not in any way constitute sufficient proof. Far from it. And for my part, I am careful not to rush to the conclusion that I was precisely allowing myself to criticize the authorities in their assertions of the first hours. It only seems to me that, faced with this fire, this disaster, part of our history in which it will forever hold a considerable place, we cannot – and we must not – close so soon and especially with such an appearance of lightness, the search for truth. Finally, please, let us not go and discard it by shouting about conspiracy. Because no question, however disturbing, however iconoclastic it may be, can ever be relegated to this trash bin without examination. Never. The answers are sometimes like this. Never any questions. All must have the right to citizenship, if only for the sake of method.
