Rachida Dati, France’s culture minister, has suggested charging an entry fee for visitors to Notre-Dame de Paris when the cathedral reopens in December following its five-year restoration.
Dati told Le Figaro that forcing people to pay a five-euro entry fee could raise 75 million euros a year. Those funds could then be used to “save all the churches in Paris and France.” The 75 million euros would apparently be generated by an estimated 15 million visitors to Notre-Dame in 2025.
The medieval cathedral’s roof was gutted by a fire in 2019. Before the blaze, up to 14 million people visited Notre-Dame each year.
However, opponents of Dati’s proposal have pointed to the fact that imposing an entry fee might be unlawful under a sacrosanct French law signed in 1905, which saw churches transfer ownership of their buildings to the state, while agreeing to stay open to the public with “no charges or dues.”
The French culture minister’s stance softened, though, when the Paris diocese got involved in the debate by issuing a statement backing the “unchanged position of the Catholic Church of France on the free entry of all churches.”
On X, Dati wrote, “Masses and religious services should remain free of course, but each cultural visitor should contribute to the preservation of our heritage.”
Her post only wound up Paris’ clerics, who replied, saying “services and visits are held together,” and that it would be impossible to “separate religious followers from visitors.” They added that “discrimination” in the form of an entrance fee “would deprive them of the communion between everyone, which is the essence of our mission and the place.”
Paris-based dealer Eric Turquin, who said he queued for three hours with his son to enter the cathedral, disagreed with the clerics. “I do not understand why it would be impossible to guide worshippers to a chapel or a crypt, and ask for a contribution from the tourists, as is the case elsewhere in Europe,” he told the Art Newspaper.
Protecting France’s religious buildings is a huge task, with a report finding that of the country’s 40,000 or so churches, most of which are managed by small towns, 5,000 are in poor condition, while 1,300 are in peril.
Architectural historian Alexandre Gady, who has written a book on Notre-Dame, told France Info that he thinks charging people to enter the cathedral is a “very bad idea.”
Not only “is it unrealistic, it also represents a philosophical break with cultural democratization,” he said. As an alternative, he suggested increasing the tourist tax paid by visitors for each night they stay in Paris and using the funds raised to protect France’s cultural heritage.
