Notre Dame cathedral: France plans to charge tourists to enter popular landmark - when is it due to reopen?

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The French government is proposing to charge tourists an entrance fee for the Notre Dame Cathedral when it reopens.

The culture minister Rachida Dati’s plan would charge visitors €5, potentially generating €75 million annually to support the restoration of other deteriorating religious buildings in the country. She believes Notre Dame could serve as a model for the country’s broader preservation efforts.

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The move would also force non-EU visitors to pay more for tickets to cultural sites. When the Notre Dame was previously open, before the 2019 fire shattered the 850-year-old state-owned cathedral, visitors could enter for free.

The religious building attracted around 13 million people a year. Its towers, however, cost €8.50 to climb for a panoramic view of Paris and a close-up of the cathedral’s famous gargoyles.

The French government is proposing to charge tourists an entrance fee for the Notre Dame Cathedral when it reopens. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)The French government is proposing to charge tourists an entrance fee for the Notre Dame Cathedral when it reopens. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)
The French government is proposing to charge tourists an entrance fee for the Notre Dame Cathedral when it reopens. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images) | AFP via Getty Images

The World Heritage Site is scheduled to reopen on 8 December, but the full restoration will not be complete until 2026. France is home to around 42,000 Catholic churches and many of them need of repair.

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Experts estimate that one religious building is lost every two weeks due to neglect, fire or vandalism, and so funds are urgently needed. The French government has launched multiple campaigns to address this crisis, including the ‘Loto du Patrimoine’, which funds restoration efforts.

In 2022 alone, the Interior Ministry spent €57 million on religious heritage and over the past five years, €280 million have gone toward restoring more than 8,000 sites. As part of Notre Dame’s reconstruction, a new €2 million firefighting system is being installed after it was found that inadequate firefighting equipment allowed the blaze to destroy the cathedral’s roof and cause its spire to topple.

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