Paris (AFP)

The titanic site to secure the burnt Notre-Dame, suspended since mid-March due to coronavirus, will be able to resume very gradually, with always the ambition to revive the cathedral by 2024.

The chief architect, Philippe Villeneuve, and a dozen people in charge of the project management, met Monday morning in the offices of the base-living at the bedside of the cathedral to examine complex options: after the lead, the coronavirus requires new drastic measures of distancing and hygiene.

On the site put to sleep in mid-March nothing was still moving: the dismantling of the huge scaffolding should not start before a week or two, the time to optimize the anti-contamination measures and select the best options for the work rope access technicians in the air.

General Jean-Louis Georgelin, who heads "the Notre-Dame task force", repeated on Europe 1 the five-year objective set by Emmanuel Macron: "We will do everything to ensure that deadlines are met. That means being able to return the cathedral to worship. " "This does not mean that everything will be over," he said.

A documentary broadcast on France 2, "Sauver Notre-Dame", showed the great cohesion of the teams for this "construction site of the century" of unprecedented complexity and also the exasperation of many stakeholders regarding the delays caused by the sanitary measures imposed before the coronavirus.

-Slow ramp-up-

The takeover was decided after consultation with the companies and in accordance with "health safety recommendations".

The former chief of staff of the armies has planned "three stages" as the staff strengthens in May: 1 / reactivation of the base station, 2 / completion of the work which was in progress mid -March, notably concerning the new decontamination installations, 3 / launch of the removal of the damaged scaffolding (which should take four months).

"For the rope access technicians, the social distancing is obvious," General Georgelin told AFP in April, already pleading for the partial recovery.

A meeting of the inter-enterprise college of safety, health and working conditions (CISSCT) was to be held Monday afternoon in the presence of the Labor Inspectorate.

"It is extremely important to provide everyone upstream with safe conditions in the face of the pandemic," Jean-Louis Georgelin insisted on Monday.

The cutting can be done from nacelles, or from the metal beam mounted above the scaffolding. The giant crane will then place each cut piece on the ground.

The companions will have masks and hydroalcoholic gel.

An extension of the base must be opened within 3 weeks in barracks on the banks of the Seine. It is above all a question of installing new showers at a distance from each other, better preserving decontamination, while the number of workers will be increased.

Before mid-March, the site mobilized between 60 and 70 workers every day.

Sodexo and Accor, partners of the Heritage Foundation (FdP), provided logistical support.

While the hotel chain will accommodate companions, often from the provinces, at cost price, an agreement signed with the FdP provides that Sodexo will deliver, free of charge, hot meals for lunch and take-out meals for dinner.

"We must ensure that economic activity can restart," hammered on Monday General Georgelin, joining the concern of the Foundation to facilitate in France heritage sites providing many jobs for SMEs.

The head of the public establishment recognized that there would be an additional cost due to all the delays, a cost which "we have not yet fully calculated". The completion of the current security phase is still planned before the end of 2020.

© 2020 AFP