As reported Le Canard EnchaînéThursday, March 20, an individual climbed to reach the arrow before rolling into the void. The incident would highlight a lack of means for the surveillance of the site still underway on the building.
An unorthodox feat. Thursday, March 20 at dawn, an individual managed to thwart the security of the site of Notre-Dame de Paris and to walk freely on the scaffolding at the bottom of the arrow. If the incident can lend to smile, he questions the site protection which is still underway on the monument which welcomes nearly a million visitors per month since its reopening.
The intruder discreetly took advantage of the opening of the palisades, which surrounds the site. They would have been left open for moving a crane. He then climbed to the top of the scaffolding which encloses the arrow before set off in a vacuum using a paraglider, reports Le Canard Enchaîné . His landing, described as « brutal »took place on the forecourt of the cathedral, where the police immediately challenged it.
A security system, however redesigned
The event takes an embarrassing turn when you know that the monument’s security system was completely redesigned before reopening. A battery of thermal cameras has notably been installed, mainly to detect any intrusion and possible start of fire. According to Le Canard Enchaînéthe intrusion would have been facilitated above all by a drastic reduction in surveillance workforce. According to the satirical weekly, around twenty agents permanently ensured the protection of the site. Since reopening to the public last December, their number would have been revised downwards.
This is not the first time that Notre-Dame de Paris has become the playground of acrobats crossing the prohibition. In 2018, the Freerunner Simon Nogueira had climbed the arrow of the monument without authorization, filming its dizzying ascent to post it on YouTube. The writer Sylvain Tesson had also said that he had climbed the cathedral several times when he was young. In 2020, several people entered the Cathedral site area, before getting into the 75 -meter -high crane and entering the cockpit.
The intrusion of March 20 shows that access to the heights of Notre-Dame is still too easy for the proponents of the Urbex.