They found traces of cigarettes and electrical cables in Notre-Dame where they should not be

"Le Bras Freres", the construction company that mounted the scaffolding around the needle of the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedralHe acknowledged to the investigators that some of his workers were smoking in the workplace. The company said it "regretted" the fact that some workers violated the ban on smoking at the site, but "ruled out" any connection between cigarettes and the cathedral fire. "In fact," said Marc Eskenazi, a spokesman for the company, "workers sometimes violate the ban, but the fire could in no way trigger a fire because of it . "

"Indeed, some employees have violated this ban from time to time and we regret it," AFP spokesman Marc Eskenazi told AFP. "They informed the police," he said. The spokesman responded to an article in the satirical weekly Le Canard Chained, released Wednesday, according to which the police reportedly found seven cigarette butts near the scaffolding. However, Eskenazi "ruled out" the fact that a badly extinguished cigarette butt caused the fire that devastated last Monday part of the roof of the Gothic cathedral and collapsed its iconic needle.

"Anyone who has ever tried to light a fire (knows it) does not spend a lot when a cigarette is thrown on an oak trunk," he added, referring to the 1,200 trunks supporting the roof of the cathedral. "Smoking was forbidden on scaffolding," Eskenazi said. But it was "a little complicated to go down because it took a long time," he said.

An article in the satirical magazine Duck revealed that researchers found seven cigarette butts in the work area. "Anyone who has ever tried to light a fire (knows it) does not spend much money when a cigarette is thrown on an oak trunk," he said. evoking the 1200 wooden beams that supported the roof of the building. cathedral, called for this reason "the forest". These beams burned and this collapsed the iconic monument of Paris.

The violation of the ban on smoking is not the only security breach suffered by Notre Dame. according to The chained Duck, although on the wooden deck there should be no electrical appliances that could cause a spark, "electric cables ran through the doorway", placed "at the express request of the clergy" although it is clearly "in violation of all the rules of safety issued by the chief architects of historical monuments".

The wires electrified the bells that were on the bridge and under the destroyed needle. The measure should be temporary when repairing the main steeples, but it was never reversed and, in fact, these bells rang "12 minutes before the outbreak of the first fire alarm". In addition, the afternoon of the fatal fire, a "series of human errors" delayed and firefighters arrived 35 minutes after the first alert and not 20, as highlighted by the official version.

Until now, the official story is that after the first awakening, around 18:20, the guards responsible for getting on the roof and checking their condition could not check any firePatrick Chauvet, rector of the cathedral, said last week. According to Duckthis was due to the fact that the two envoys "were wrong and therefore could not detect anything". The two now accuse the employee of the cathedral security device for providing them with false information, which the company responsible for the system, Elitys, denied to the satirical weekly.

The Cathedral of Our Give me es most visited historical monument in Europe, with between 12 and 14 million tourists a year. Early indications suggest that the fire arose accidentally, probably by a short circuit, but the experts will have to thoroughly study all the charred remains in search of tests to determine exactly the causes. The four official collectors appointed by the French Ministry of Culture have collected more than 400 million euros to restore the cathedral with the collaboration of individuals and businesses.

S.D.