French unity shatters – Billionaires and gilets-jaunes fight over Notre Dame fire

The French are beating themselves up at the moment. Already snarling at each other in the wake of the gilets-jaunes revolt, they are busy looking at ways in which the near-destruction (but actual salvation) of Notre-Dame can be employed as a metaphor for national renewal.

Insofar as there is unity, it lies in the universal relief felt that the Notre-Dame did not collapse, but somehow survived the inferno in which it was wreathed on Tuesday night. It was not only the religious who gave thanks for an unlikely deliverance. The whole of France was on its knees, grateful that catastrophe had been averted.

But that was yesterday. Today, the knives are out. The online ink was barely dry on the cheques for as much as one billion euros donated by France’s multi-billionare class than the hard Left and the populist Right were demanding to know how these plutocrats could pay out hundreds of millions of euros, seemingly at will, for the cause of their choice while they, the little people, barely had enough in their bank accounts to pay this week’s grocery bill.

At the same time, the President, Emmanuel Macron, came under fire for promising to rebuild the stricken cathedral in just five years – presumably to act as the symbolic highlight of his second term in office. If he were to meet his target, it would allow him, at least in his own mind, to go out as a reincarnation of King Louis IX – Saint Louis – the monarch who brought back the Crown of Thorns from Jerusalem in 1238 and in so doing established Paris as one of the most important centres of Christendom.

On Tuesday night, shortly after the Cathedral’s distinctive nineteenth century spire toppled over and crashed into the building’s burning nave, Macron found the right words to express the nation’s shock and distress. But it was later, perhaps, as he reflected on his description of Notre-Dame as the central repository of French memory that he saw a way in which to add his own contribution to its story, and thus to his own.

After all, if the official reopening were to take place in 2028, rather than 2024, it would be his successor who would be welcoming the Pope and other world leaders to the ceremony rather than him. He would be on the podium, no doubt, but the glory would not be his.

We live in a cynical age, and it would be grossly unfair to characterise Macron as believing that the tragedy of Notre-Dame is all about him. Like François Mitterrand, he is a man of culture, almost painfully aware of the sweep of history. But he is also a politician, and – again like Mitterrand – supremely egotistical. So while his primary concern will be to ensure that the work that will at some point begin on the Île de la Cité is properly funded and appropriate to the challenge, there will be space, too, in his calculations for the role that he should occupy in such a great national endeavour.

Doubtless the same was true of King Louis. When he gave the Crown of Thorns (the Salvator Mundi of its day, and less likely to be authentic) to the See of Paris, he was not only confirming France as the First Daughter of the Holy Apostolic Church, he was ensuring his own place in history. In the end, Louis, who wore a hair shirt and regularly submitted himself to scourging, died of dysentery while on crusade – a fate unlikely to befall Macron, the most sybaritic French leader since Napoleon III.

The President favours well-cut cotton shirts, with easy-roll-up sleeves for when he is “listening to the people” at townhall gatherings. But while more of a scourger than a scourgee, he, too, is a crusader, in his case for European integration, economic reform and an end to division. Whether, in the end, he will be any more successful in pursuit of his goals than Louis remains to be seen. All that be said at this juncture is that the signs do not bode well.

Beyond the Élysée Palace, where the people in recent days have been calling the shots, the backdraft from the fire at Notre-Dame has taken the form of an upsurge in populist resentment at the almost unimaginable wealth of those at the top.

The Pinault family, owners of the luxury goods company Kering, pledged €100m to the rescue effort before the flames had even been brought fully under control. Not to be outdone, Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of LVMF and Europe’s richest man, with a personal fortune of €85 billion, threw in €200m, as did the scandal-hit Bettencourt Meyers family, the owners of L’Oreal. All told, the amounts pledged by big business and wealthy donors had hit one billion euros within two days, without anyone, apparently, feeling the pinch.

It is this – the ease of paying out vast amounts on a whim – that has angered many ordinary people, including the gilets-jaunes. The protests that have hit Paris and other French cities in recent months were rapidly running out of steam, and it was thought initially that the blaze at Notre-Dame would finally bring them to a halt as the nation turned its gaze towards more enduring concerns. In fact, as it became clear that the super-rich could quickly cough up hundred of millions of euros without turning a hair, some protestors felt they had been given a second wind.

If they had to struggle to fill up their cars with diesel, why should the makers of luxury goods, intended for the well-to-do, be able to come up with more than any of them could hope to earn in a hundred lifetimes?

It is a good question – one that could have been asked by the peasantry at any time over the last thousand years. As firefighters, led by their Catholic chaplain, were risking their lives saving the treasures of Notre-Dame, churches, townhalls and community centres across France were already organising collections intended to finance the rebuilding of their beloved national cathedral. But it turned out that their ten-euros, twenty-euros and fifty-euros were barely worthy of note when set against the diamond-studded largesse of the billionaire class. People felt diminished by an extravagance they could not hope to match. While they were big news when, as gilets-jaunes, they broke the windows of luxury goods stores in the Champs-Élysée, they were also rans when it came to restoring the nation’s heritage.

Will the gilets-jaunes feel they have a new lease of life this weekend? Possibly not. Paris is still in mourning for its loss. But do not be surprised if one of the the longer-term miracles of Notre-Dame is renewed protest in the streets and a further, extended challenge to the authority of a beleaguered Emmanuel Macron.