'Miracles' and controversies in Notre Dame's renaissance
This picture, taken on 9 July 2019 in Paris, shows the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral during ongoing reconstruction work after it was badly damaged by a massive fire on 15 April 2019.
BERTRAND GUAY / AFP
The more than five-year reconstruction of Notre Dame cathedral has featured some near-miraculous recoveries, as well as several controversies.
With the cathedral set to formally re-open on Saturday, AFP looks at some of the key moments:
The saviors
Paris firefighters won universal praise for their swift and decisive action on the evening of 15 April 2019, with officers later saying they thought they were only 30 minutes away from seeing the structure collapse.
Battling smoke and the risk of falling debris, they formed a human chain with church officials to evacuate the most precious artifacts and religious treasures, helping preserve most of the cathedral's irreplaceable contents.
Firefighters assemble their hoses as they gather at the River Seine near Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral as flames engulf the roof of the cathedral on 15 April 2019, in the French capital Paris.
STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
Others saw divine intervention in how a copper statue of a rooster that had sat atop the building's incinerated 19th-century spire was found afterwards intact amid the scorched rubble.
Its contents -- three relics, including a small piece of the Crown of Thorns supposedly worn by Jesus before his crucifixion -- also survived, and the battered rooster is now on display in a Paris museum.
Inside the cathedral, images the day after the blaze revealed that a giant gold cross on the altar was still standing amid the still smouldering wreckage, a symbol of hope and defiance for many on a dark day for Christians and the country at large.
French Culture Minister Franck Riester addresses the media as he stands next to the rooster which sat atop of the spire of the Notre-Dame cathedral, during a presentation of the exhibition "Revoir Notre-Dame de Paris" (To see again Notre-Dame de Paris) at the Culture Ministry in Paris, on 20 September 2019 as part of the heritage days.
![[FILE] French State Prosecutor Remy Heitz speaks during a press conference, in Paris, on 29 November 2020.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.assettype.com%2Ftribune%2F2024-12-07%2Fyyltaorm%2F0008W64NK.jpg%3Fw%3D1200%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
