Paris (AFP)

Special school entrance around Notre-Dame: parents of students oscillated Monday between "anxiety" and "caution" in this district of Paris where fears of lead pollution are not completely dispelled six months after the fire of the cathedral.

At school Saint-Benoit, closed during the summer for decontamination work, some parents refuse to fall into psychosis even if the rectorate of Paris announced Friday the postponement of the return to five schools also located in the heart of the capital.

"I followed all the information about lead and depollution from start to finish before bringing my daughter back to school and I am completely reassured," says Paul, 46, whose daughter is back in her third year. 6th district school. "Everything has been done with caution," he says.

This summer, this school was one of four schools in Paris where particularly high levels of lead were found - up to 100 times the only warning of 70 μg / m2 in some parts of the outdoor courtyard, which has since been completely renovated.

Zackia, a member of the parents' association, is not completely reassured. She is waiting for the results of her child's blood test, tested with lead, and deplores a "lack of information".

"We did not receive a mail until July 7, it had been almost three months since the fire of Notre Dame," she says. "Our children are always on the ground, they can be largely contaminated," laments the mother who says "angry with the school and the town hall" and would have wished a postponement of the return.

In Saint-Benoit, one child had a higher threshold than the mandatory declaration of lead poisoning (set at 50 μg / l) during the summer, without the source of contamination being found.

"We remain in limbo, we are told that everything is fine but it is elusive, everyone returns the hot potato", worried Armelle and Franck, parents of Tess, 9 years who returns to CM1, still not examined. "We have no precise data, we have been aware only by the newspapers," they lament.

- "News by the newspapers" -

Arrival of Lyon a few days ago and having "not yet a mailbox", Marianne, mother of a boy who returns in CM1, "disembark completely". "I was not even aware of this story of lead and work in the yard," she says, panting, her son in hand.

For her part, Mickaela, mother of three children aged 10, 7 and 5 and returned this summer from abroad, said "not at all worried": "We received a reassuring mail, if the school should have been closed, it would be closed, "she explains.

Further in front of the elementary school Jardinet which overlooks a small alley, in the district Odéon (6th district), the parents are "appeased": "This school was never questioned so it means that the analyzes are good, "said Pierre," completely satisfied with the information provided "

"If it was too dangerous, the return would have been postponed, there is no psychosis," adds another parent of student. For them, "it's a comeback like any other".

In the capital, in total, about 260 children attending school in the districts near the cathedral have achieved blood lead levels since the fire of Notre-Dame, which has melted several hundred tons of blood. lead being in the frame of the Gothic monument.

The Robin des Bois Association, which has filed a complaint for endangering the lives of others, claims that of the 55,000 children and adolescents enrolled in the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th arrondissements, fewer than 200 benefited from 'a blood lead.

On Friday, the rectorate asked for the postponement of the return to school in five private schools to let the Regional Health Agency (ARS) carry out new lead detection tests in these schools.

© 2019 AFP