Place Notre-Dame is closed due to the high concentration …

The place of Notre Dame de Paris was temporarily closed to the public due to the high concentration of lead caused by the fire in the cathedral two years ago, police in the French capital announced on Tuesday.

“The results of the last measurement campaign showed lead dust concentrations above the usual level in Paris at certain points in the square“Parisian police said in a statement.

The closure will be lifted as soon as the cleaning of the square is finished and that “all the measured values ​​have returned to a sufficiently low level”, it was specified.

Since the 2019 fire, the square and the cathedral are constantly monitored for the concentration of lead dust.

Flames they had melted several hundred tons of lead in the framework of the Gothic monument.

The fire in the cathedral, the construction of which began in 1163, occurred a little over two years ago, April 15, 2019. Even if the temple lost its spire, roof, clock and part of its vault, the work of the firefighters ensured that the large medieval building did not collapse.

Two years after the fire, French President Emmanuel Macron visited the building, highlighting the efforts made in the reconstruction.

“A huge job has been done in two years,” Macron said on his first visit to the cathedral after the destruction.

The reconstruction of Our–Lady It will not be completed for five years, according to Jean-Louis Georgelin, president of the public body in charge of its reconstruction, when the work to recover the Parisian cathedral began. However, he noted, a first mass can take place in 2024.

Two years after the incident, the riddle of its origin remains unresolved. There is very little information available on the status of the investigation.

In June 2019, at the end of the preliminary investigation, the Paris prosecutor’s office indicated that theor it is more likely to be an accident. “For the moment, we maintain the same thesis, that of the badly extinguished butt or the short-circuit”, told AFP a source of the judicial investigation.