American presidents have libraries to preserve their legacy. The French prefer glass.<\/p>\n
Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand gave the Louvre its distinctive glass pyramid; Georges Pompidou built an art center with an unusual glass-tube escalator crawling up its outside; Jacques Chirac opened a Paris art museum with an enormous glass facade.<\/p>\n
President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s vision to immortalize himself in glass? Replace some windows in the recently reopened Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The custodians of French architecture have responded with a resounding \u201cnon!\u201d<\/p>\n
His aides say Macron wants to remind future generations of the 2019 blaze that consumed the medieval-era cathedral\u2014and his part leading its restoration. He has approved contemporary designs in yellow, pink and green stained glass for the replacement windows.<\/p>\n
The resistance is multilayered. Art historians and architects say the 19th-century windows Macron wants to replace are protected by French law and that changing them out would destroy the harmony of the cathedral\u2019s design.<\/p>\n
The backlash is also a reflection of Macron\u2019s sinking popularity in France, where many voters have soured on what they see as a defiant and imperious leadership style. France\u2019s ascendant far-right is berating the president over his window plan, which now looks set to be challenged in the courts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an unpopular president, and everything is held against him,\u201d said Pascal Perrineau, a political-science professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.<\/p>\n
Memes appearing online depict Macron and his wife Brigitte in stained glass. In some, Macron is wearing a crown. Unfounded rumors have circulated on social media claiming the windows will depict two men kissing. A petition to block Macron\u2019s plans has gathered more than 275,000 signatures.<\/p>\n
Macron\u2019s plan involves replacing the towering windows of six side-chapels in the south aisle of Notre Dame\u2019s nave, with more modern designs.<\/p>\n
The cathedral, according to the presidential aides, is an evolving piece of historic architecture. Much like France\u2019s heritage, they say, it isn\u2019t frozen in time, each century bringing its own attributes.<\/p>\n
The French president has staked much of his legacy on rebuilding Notre Dame, an edifice in central Paris that for centuries has encapsulated the country\u2019s civic and religious life. Hours after the fire, he pledged to restore\u2014and exceed\u2014the cathedral\u2019s former glory within five years.<\/p>\n
The fire destroyed the Gothic spire, along with parts of the cathedral\u2019s majestic roof. Macron proposed an international competition to design replacements for both, which prompted an array of proposals from a diamond-shaped glass roof to a 300-foot flame-like structure covered in gold leaf.<\/p>\n
The chief architect overseeing France\u2019s historic monuments, Philippe Villeneuve, was horrified, and told French radio that he would resign rather than allow a contemporary spire.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Notre Dame was rebuilt to its pre-fire blueprint, on deadline and to great acclaim. Macron turned his attention to stained-glass windows as a way to give the building a modern accent and leave his mark. (He can\u2019t stand in the next election.)<\/p>\n
The windows Macron wants to replace were installed in the 19th century by Eug\u00e8ne Viollet-le-Duc, who also designed the cathedral\u2019s gothic spire and added the mythical stone creatures that adorn the balustrade between its two famous bell towers. That makes him almost as entwined with Notre Dame lore as Victor Hugo\u2019s hunchback Quasimodo.<\/p>\n
Preservationists say removing the stained-glass windows, which are protected under the country\u2019s heritage rules, shatters the Venice charter, a set of international guidelines drawn up in 1964 for the conservation and restoration of historic buildings.<\/p>\n
Opponents also argue that the new windows would destroy the harmony and disrupt the balance created by Viollet-le-Duc through his simple designs that allow light to stream into the otherwise shadowy nave. The apertures lead the eye to the choir, where Viollet-le-Duc installed other more elaborate, figurative stained-glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a hierarchy in the richness of stained-glass,\u201d says Julien Lacaze, head of Sites & Monuments, France\u2019s oldest national heritage body, who launched the petition to block Macron\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n
In July, the country\u2019s National Heritage and Architecture Commission unanimously voted against Macron\u2019s proposal for new windows, a rare moment of agreement within the government body.<\/p>\n
As a result, Pascal Convert, one of the artists in the running to design the stained glass, dropped out of the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I read that, I said \u2018We\u2019re stopping everything,\u2019\u201d said Convert, 67. He welled up over what he described as Macron\u2019s transformation of Notre Dame\u2019s reopening into a United Nations\u2019 summit after the president invited world leaders and tech titans such as Elon Musk to take part. Macron\u2019s decision to go ahead, despite the heritage commission\u2019s vote, reinforced the president\u2019s arrogance over the matter, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants to leave a mark like Mitterrand, but he will never,\u201d Convert said. \u201cMitterrand was a man of culture, Macron he\u2019s a banker,\u201d he added, referring to Macron\u2019s former finance career.<\/p>\n
Mitterrand faced opposition, too. Critics said the glass pyramid, inaugurated in 1989, clashed with the style and aesthetic of the Louvre. A local official said the museum would be disfigured, and one famous art historian said its courtyard was being treated like an annex of Disneyland.<\/p>\n
Macron is forging ahead. Last month, members of an artistic committee set up by the French culture ministry, selected French artist Claire Tabouret\u2019s design to grace the window shafts. The aim is to install her new figurative work at the end of next year, for an estimated four million euros, equivalent to around $4.2 million.<\/p>\n
Criticism of Macron\u2019s move isn\u2019t entirely framed in France. \u201cHe is inserting himself in the history of Notre-Dame,\u201d said Claire Smith, a professor of archaeology at Flinders University Australia. It\u2019s \u201copportunistic and self-agrandising,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The Paris region prefect, the top local civil servant, is now expected to sign off on the move, which Lacaze of Sites & Monuments plans to oppose through the courts.<\/p>\n
Opposition lawmakers too have seized on the project, describing it as expensive vandalism, and vowed to block it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis heritage belongs to the French people of today, yesterday and tomorrow, and a leader can\u2019t sully, this priceless heritage on a whim,\u201d far-right leader Marine Le Pen wrote on X last month.<\/p>\n