Early this Saturday morning, a fire broke out in the Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul cathedral in Nantes. While the fire was contained, an arson investigation was opened.
This Saturday, July 18 in the morning, the firefighters were alerted to a fire in the Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul cathedral in Nantes, around 7.45 am, passers-by seeing flames behind the rose window. Before midday, the fire could be contained, indicate the local authorities. A year after the Notre-Dame fire, many people feared the same tragedy would happen again.
There would be no need to fear such a disaster, reassures Laurent Ferlay, departmental director of firefighters for Loire-Atlantique. "The damage is concentrated on the large organ which seems to be completely destroyed and the platform on which it is located is very unstable and threatens to collapse ", he announced at a press conference. However, "We are not in a scenario Notre-Dame-de-Paris, or of the fire of 1972, or that of the cathedral Saint-Donatien (of Nantes) in 2015". Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul Cathedral had already been engulfed in flames in the 1970s: "The roof is not affected. Following the fire of 1972, the roof had been redone in concrete reinforcement, there are partitions and it is for this reason that we are certainly not in this scenario", says the head of SDIS44.
According to France Bleu Loire Océan, the firefighters observed three fires: "one at the level of the large organ and two fire departures to the left and right of the nave". "Three starts of fire, that leads us to favor the criminal hypothesis, it is not the result of chance", declared the public prosecutor of Nantes, Pierre Sennès, on the local radio. The firefighters, the regional service of the judicial police which was seized, as well as the prosecutor will have to enter the cathedral in the hours to come in order to "make some observations to see for ourselves the damage and realize the circumstances of commission of facts". An arson investigation was opened.
While Johanna Rolland, the mayor of Nantes, is on the spot since this morning, she would be joined during the afternoon by Jean Castex, Prime Minister, Roselyne Bachelot, Minister of Culture, and Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the 'Interior. "After Notre-Dame, the Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral, in the heart of Nantes, is in flames. Support for our firefighters who take all the risks to save this Gothic jewel of the city of the Dukes"said Emmanuel Macron on Twitter.
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