The French army general in charge of rebuilding fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris says renovation work will begin in earnest later this year.
General Jean-Louis Georgelin told a French parliament commission that workers are still securing the structure.
Concerns persist that Notre Dame’s vaulted ceilings could collapse.
READ MORE: Notre Dame Cathedral holds first Mass since devastating fire in April
“Even if we are rather confident and even if all the indicators seem positive, it is still too early to affirm that the cathedral is saved,” he said.
The April fire destroyed the landmark’s spire and the roof that kept its twin-towered facade and ceilings stable.
In mid-February, specialists plan to start taking down scaffolding that was installed before the fire for planned repair work.
The process will take four months and involve professional climbers removing 40,000 pieces of scaffolding weighing a total of 200 tons, Gen Georgelin said.
The cathedral also has to be cleared of lead, and only then will experts be able to make decisions about how to rebuild Notre Dame.
READ MORE: A history of Notre Dame cathedral
Gen Georgelin said the church could reopen to the public within five years as President Emmanuel Macron has promised, even though some experts have that timetable unrealistic.
Renovation teams will not “form a commission to take three months to decide whether to replace one stone”, but also do not plan to do a rush job on a “cathedral that we are leaving for generations to come”.
The reconstruction of Notre Dame, whose first stone was laid in 1163, has prompted widespread debate across France, with differing views over whether it should involve new technologies and designs.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here