French authorities treating Nantes cathedral fire, now contained, as criminal act

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: REUTERS, via France 24

French authorities treating Nantes cathedral fire, now contained, as criminal act

Issued on: 18/07/2020 - 09:30

A major fire broke out in the cathedral in the western French city of Nantes on Saturday, blowing out stained glass windows and destroying the grand organ in the 15th-century building, officials said.

Prosecutor Pierre Sennes told reporters three fires had been started at the site and authorities were treating the incident as a criminal act. He gave no other details.

Dozens of firefighters brought the fire under control after several hours. Smoke was still coming out of the Gothic structure after massive flames earlier engulfed the inside.

The blaze comes just over a year after a major fire at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, which destroyed its roof and main spire.

Local fire chief Laurent Ferlay told reporters 104 firefighters were still at the site to ensure the blaze was completely under control.

{snip}

(REUTERS)

Read more: https://www.france24.com/en/20200718-major-fire-strikes-cathedral-in-french-city-of-nantes

---

More in a few minutes

First excerpt:

Fire breaks out at medieval French cathedral, a year after Notre Dame

By James McAuley19 minutes ago

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/fire-breaks-out-at-medieval-french-cathedral-a-year-after-notre-dame/2020/07/18/b2c1f9b4-c8d7-11ea-a9d3-74640f25b953_story.html

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Related:

Art World

France Will Rebuild Notre Dame’s Spire as It Was, Scrapping Plans to Top the Fire-Ravaged Cathedral With a Contemporary Design

President Emmanuel Macron has abandoned the idea of holding an international competition to design a new spire.

Sarah Cascone, July 13, 2020

After months of debate, France has decided to stick to tradition in reconstructing Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, rather than replacing the 19th-century spire with a contemporary design.

Designed by French architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, the spire collapsed in the April 2019 blaze that tore through the church’s wooden attic. Wrongly identified as a false alarm, the fire raged unchecked for close to a half hour before firefighters were called to the scene.

By that time, the wooden timbers of “The Forest,” as the attic was sometimes called, were almost beyond saving. Firefighters focused much of their energies on salvaging the cathedral’s Gothic belfry towers from collapse. As they fought to combat the flames, the 800-ton, 305-foot-tall lead-coated spire crashed through the vaulted stone ceiling, tumbling to the cathedral floor.

Extinguishing the conflagration took nine hours.

{snip}

[secondwind]

2. Been there. Such a beautiful place. What a shame 😢

[a la izquierda]

3. I was supposed to go there...

As well as Amiens and Mont St Michel this summer.

[burrowowl]

4. Sad!

[regnaD kciN]

5. They say the damage is "not as severe as Notre-Dame"...

...and, while that is true in the structural sense, the damage seems to have been reversed from the Paris blaze. In that one, while the roof was destroyed, the stained glass and the organ survived. In this case, those were destroyed. The organ dates from 1621; they simply don't make instruments that can be compared with that anymore, no matter the price-tag. Likewise the stained glass, where it's doubtful that, as was the case with Notre-Dame, most of the windows had been replaced in the mid-19th century, and were well-documented in every detail.

In this case, while the cathedral may reopen much earlier than Notre-Dame, it will never be the same.

And I assume we'll be seeing the same sort of rumors of Islamic terror that we saw in Paris in the early days, this time given greater weight by the fact that it does seem to have been arson.

[ucrdem]

6. Very sad. Not the first time however.

Damaged by bombs in WWII, roof destroyed by fire in 1972, and then 13 years to rebuild. Here's a good English-language video report from ITV:

p.s. this France24 English-language video shows the 1972 fire, toward the end:

[ucrdem]

7. Volunteer in charge of locking up arrested for arson, motive unknown

Apparently a 39-year old church volunteer, originally from Rwanda, whose job was to make sure the doors were locked, confessed to starting three fires, two in the organ and one in an electrical box, after initially denying any connection. He was released after questioning last week, but it seems he confessed after a second arrest and is now in custody:

Volunteer indicted, admits arson in France's Nantes cathedral fire
France24, 26/07/2020 - 06:41

French authorities detained and charged a repentant church volunteer Sunday after he told investigators that he was responsible for an arson attack that badly damaged a 15th-century Gothic cathedral.

The man had previously been questioned and then released after the July 18 blaze that destroyed the organ, shattered stained glass windows, and blackened the insides of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul of the western French city of Nantes.

Detained again this weekend for further questioning, the volunteer church worker finally admitted responsibility for the fire, said his lawyer, Quentin Chabert. “He confessed to the allegations against him which, as the prosecutor indicated, are causing destruction and damage by fire," the lawyer told France Info radio. “He regrets the facts. That is certain. He is in a sort of repentance.”

French media quoted the Nantes prosecutor as saying that the 39-year-old Rwandan, who'd been tasked with the job of locking up the cathedral, told the investigating magistrate that he lit three fires: on two cathedral organs and an electrical box. His motives were unknown. The reports quoted the prosecutor as saying that the arson charge is punishable by a 10-year jail term.

https://www.france24.com/en/20200726-man-questioned-over-france-s-nantes-cathedral-fire-arrested-again

p.s. if he did it, I'm glad they caught him, but I won't be confident that he's really the perp without a lot more evidence.