France proposes charging entrance fee to Notre Dame for reopening

The French government is proposing to charge tourists an entrance fee for Notre Dame Cathedral when it reopens, five years after being ravaged by a fire.

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. The move would also force non-EU visitors to pay more for tickets to cultural sites.

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 World Heritage Site is scheduled to reopen on 8 December, but the full restoration will not be complete until 2026.

“Across Europe, visitors pay to access the most remarkable religious sites. With 5 euros per visitor at Notre Dame, we could save churches all over France. It would be a beautiful symbol,” Dati said in an interview with Le Figaro newspaper published Wednesday evening.

The funds are urgently needed as France is home to around 42,000 Catholic churches and many of them need of repair. Experts estimate that one religious building is lost every two weeks due to neglect, fire or vandalism.

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.

Ariel Weil, the mayor of Paris Centre where the cathedral is located, told French broadcaster BFM TV: “It’s morally shocking, there’s no question of making the faithful pay.”

But Ms Dati later clarified on X, formerly Twitter, that the entrance fee would only apply to cultural visitors, not those attending mass or religious services. She said: “Religious services must remain free, but every cultural visitor should contribute to preserving our heritage.”

She also pointed out that many of Europe’s most remarkable religious buildings charge an entrance fee. Indeed, access to Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia is €26 while sightseeing tickets for St. Paul’s Cathedral are £25.

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.