Dax Cathedral or the costly renovation of religious heritage

Culture Minister Rachida Dati relaunched the debate in October by suggesting charging €5 per visitor to Notre-Dame-de-Paris to raise €75 million to save "all the churches in Paris and France", while 3.000 of them are "suffering" according to the Observatory of Religious Heritage (OPR).

The diocese of Paris has defended the principle of "free entry to churches and cathedrals", but the minister said last month that she still hoped to "convince" him during a trip devoted to the announcement of "full" funding by the State of the 22 million euros needed to restore the spire of the Saint-Bénigne cathedral in Dijon.

The latter is fortunate to be one of 87 in France belonging to the State, unlike that of Dax, also called Sainte-Marie.

In the Landes, it is the cathedral of Aire-sur-l'Adour, the historic seat of the bishopric, which has this status.

Small trees on the facade

The responsibility for maintaining Notre-Dame de Dax therefore falls to the owner municipality, as for around sixty other French cathedrals built before 1905 and the law on the separation of Church and State.

"We have to take the bull by the horns" after decades of problems with watertightness and poor sanitary hygiene which have "impacted the vaults and altarpieces of great value, sometimes with great water", believes Richard Duplat, heritage architect who made the diagnosis of this "classical cathedral, very well regulated and controlled inside".

His agency specializing in ancient heritage has estimated the overall renovation at 23,9 million euros, to restore the splendor to the building, some of whose stained glass windows have remained white since the XNUMXth century, already "due to lack of money". An amount similar to the budget for the future concert hall in the Dax area.

First objective: to reinforce the structure, which is however not in danger, with emergency work starting this year on fire protection (fire door and security system), as well as on the roof to prevent the biggest leaks, while small trees were growing on the facade until recently.

"The total envelope is enormous on the scale of the municipality, whose annual investment budget is between 7 and 9 million euros. This will have to be spread over several years depending on the degree of urgency and the support obtained from co-financiers. The fact that the church is listed makes it easier for us to dialogue with the State via the DRAC (Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs)," Mayor Julien Dubois assured AFP.

Regulate diagnostics

The cathedral, built between the 1946th and 1884th centuries, has been listed as a Historic Monument since XNUMX, as has its Portal of the Apostles, the last vestige of the XNUMXth century Gothic church, which has been listed since XNUMX.

The city therefore hopes to obtain 50% funding from the state, while calling on other communities and institutions and on patronage as was the case (a few tens of thousands of euros) for the renovation of the ancient basilica of this Gallo-Roman city which reopened at the end of the summer.

While he believes that the town must "contribute to this emblematic monument which attracts a huge number of visits", particularly from spa visitors in this spa town, Julien Dubois also sees "with a positive eye" the idea put forward by Rachida Dati of making tourists to Notre-Dame de Paris pay.

"We could support many cathedrals like ours. Otherwise the financing is very, very complicated to secure," explains the mayor.

Édouard de Lamaze, president of the Religious Heritage Observatory, also defends this option, by targeting these potential funds towards municipal cathedrals.

But he also considers it necessary to "put regulations on these diagnoses that are becoming insane". "The work that is imposed on mayors, sometimes useless, is much too expensive and done haphazardly by those who will then carry it out! We need to come back down to earth", he says.