“Our Cathedral!” The man crying beside me on the banks of the Seine, watching Notre-Dame go up in flames, is Jewish. On this evening of April 15, Jonathan, a thirtysomething computer security specialist, acts as if he had lost a member of his family. “I have never been inside, but whoever is not deeply touched, can he really consider himself French?" he asks. "It is the root and heart of our nation, and of all Europe. Culturally, spiritually, historically.”
Like Jonathan, a large number of French people cried that night. This emotion has been felt well beyond Catholic circles. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical left movement France Insoumise and a Freemason, wrote one of the most beautiful reflections on the drama. Mélenchon, a choir boy in his youth, wrote on his blog: “Atheists or believers, Notre-Dame is our common cathedral. The ship, the nave that carries us all on the flow of time. And I think we love it the same way.”
