Notre-Dame: at the Croix Huyart quarry, the challenge of reconstruction

Océane Théard 11:41 a.m., April 15, 2022

Three years after the fire that ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral, its reconstruction is still in progress.

Right now, in the Croix Huyart quarry in Bonneuil-en-Valois, in the Oise, the blocks of stone that will support the vault of Notre-Dame are being taken and cut.

Report on the construction site. 

A lunar landscape… A limestone quarry dug in the middle of wet fields.

A three-meter blade rumbles, cuts blocks of stone from 1 to 3m, all remotely controlled by Benoît Horcholle.

"It's like a big chainsaw if you want, like for wood, but specialized in stone. We therefore cut perpendicularly to delimit the blocks", he explains on Europe 1. 640 cubic meters of stone for the story.

A stone strong enough to form the new vaults of Notre Dame.

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"I will remember this site until the end of my days"

"We don't do fifty in a life of construction sites like that, but I think I'll remember it until the end of my days, of course", he confides on Europe 1. A few kilometers further, the stone is recut, cleaned with the same care, by the little brother Horscholle.  

"I think it's an exceptional site. It's a job we've shared since my grandfather, with my father. Wanting to work here with them now is also a pleasure and it's my joy", he confides with emotion.

The most regular blocks will then go to Paris and will be hoisted on scaffolding more than 100 meters high so that the vaults of Notre-Dame rise again. 

Emmanuel Macron is expected this Friday afternoon at Notre-Dame.

The Head of State will take stock of the progress of the restoration project.