Help for dilapidated buildings. Emmanuel Macron will announce this Friday during a trip to Côte-d’Or a plan to save religious buildings in municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, according to information from Europe 1 confirmed by BFMTV.
This trip organized for the Heritage Days aims to respond to the concerns of the mayors of numerous towns. According to the Religious Heritage Observatory, 5,000 religious buildings are in poor condition. However, this figure is the subject of debate, since it is difficult to establish the exact status of between 40,000 and 60,000 churches and chapels of all types in 36,000 municipalities.
From 2,500 to 5,000 churches threatened with destruction
Among these places, the diversity is infinite: from the institute’s chapel transformed into a bicycle garage to the imposing church that seems to be in good condition but no one sees that the structure is deteriorated.
Since the law of separation of churches and the State of 1905, municipalities are responsible for the maintenance of religious buildings built before that date, that is, the vast majority of buildings. For its part, the State only intervenes in places registered or classified as historical monuments, that is, around 10,000 religious buildings.
According to a Senate report, there is an urgent need to change course, since between 2,500 and 5,000 churches are threatened with destruction by 2030. Emmanuel Macron had already called last June, during his visit to Mont Saint-Michel, to its Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, to work on measures of this type.
The rare generosity of private sponsorship
Although the mobilization to preserve these buildings is increasing, often linked to the “Stéphane Bern effect” and its heritage lottery, specialists regret the weakness of patronage.
Large companies “do not put a single cent” into small churches that are at risk, “a prohibition” for their image, Olivier de Rohan, president of the Safeguarding French Art foundation, lamented to AFP in 2019.
“The church plays the same role in the town as Notre-Dame does at the national level. It gives attractiveness, a feeling of trust. When we demolish it, it leaves a mark, the absent is always present,” advances Célia Vérot, general director of this foundation .
“Charitable” actions or “photovoltaic panels” on the roofs of churches
Last February, around a hundred elected LR and centrist officials took to a platform in The Sunday newspapercalling on Emmanuel Macron to defend “our small rural churches” that “are collapsing before our eyes.”
Father Gautier Mornas, responsible for Sacred Art at the French Episcopal Conference, asked him, last June, to “diversify” the activities of the churches citing “charitable and solidarity, educational and tourist” actions or even “the installation of photovoltaic installations”. panels” on ceilings.
Source: BFM TV
