Bells tolled across France Wednesday, marking the moment flames began demolishing parts of Notre Dame Cathedral. The focus is now on rebuilding the Paris cathedral — and finding the cause of the inferno that ravaged one of the world’s most iconic landmarks. The unity forged by the fire may be short-lived.

From village churches to Saint Sulpice in Paris, the sound was of bells. Notre Dame is badly damaged by Monday’s fire but still standing. Some of its biggest treasures have been saved: the bell towers and rose windows, along with priceless artifacts – like a crown of thorns said to have been worn by Jesus.

Earlier Wednesday, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced a global competition to design the replacement for Notre Dame’s spire that collapsed in the inferno. The cathedral had fire alarms but reportedly lacked some basic safety measures.

President Emmanuel Macron wants to repair Notre Dame in five years, when Paris hosts the Olympics. Some experts estimate it will take much longer. But reconstruction money is pouring in — nearly a billion dollars in donations so far.

​In an address to the nation, Macron said the fire offered an occasion to come together. “We can be better than we are,” he said.

But it’s unclear whether Notre Dame — or Macron— can unify a deeply divided France that has seen months of yellow vest protests over government policies.

Nicolas Chouin, who joined the crowds of people flocking to see the charred cathedral, said he hopes healing will occur.

“It’s something beyond us – beyond our little problems of everyday life. So it can be a rewarding event in a way. Of course it doesn’t solve all the political issues…we’ll see if it’s just a parenthesis.”

The fire caused France’s squabbling parties to suspend campaigning for European Union elections, but most observers think the truce will be short-lived. The French are also waiting for Macron to announce planned measures to meet popular grievances — also delayed by the inferno.

Investigators are interviewing construction workers who might have inadvertently started the blaze. So far, the cause is still considered likely to be accidental.
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In Paris’ heart, a charred and gaping hole. But also a rallying cry.

The disfigurement of Notre Dame, the splendid cathedral that has watched over the French capital for centuries and is now a blackened wreck mourned around the globe, felt to Parisians like a body blow, as impossible to stomach as the eternal loss to New York of its Twin Towers, as unfathomable as the idea of Egypt shorn of its pyramids or London robbed of Buckingham Palace.

Which is why, even before the tears had dried and firefighters had extinguished the flames, the immediate, visceral imperative was to rebuild. Here’s money. Here’s wood. Donations poured in, from billionaires pledging hundreds of millions of euros to the more modest offerings of those who gave what they could spare.

A nation that for months of violent yellow-vest protests has been more divided than at any time since World War II suddenly found a shared mission in the ashes of disaster: Restore, for future generations, the gift of Notre Dame that previous generations handed down to us.

Experience says the new-found unity won’t last. It didn’t even after gunmen massacred 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall and other Paris sites in 2015 and killed 17 in the attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. Then, France shared a slogan, “Je suis Charlie,” in a similar way that it now shares the pain of Notre Dame.

Because the iconic cathedral’s suffering took precedence, immediately overpowering the political, social and economic splits that have consumed President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity and much of his time since November.

He’d been due to address the nation in a broadcast Monday night. Macron quickly abandoned that plan as the inferno feeding on ancient, tinder-dry wooden beams brought down the cathedral’s spire and cross-shaped roof. Whatever Macron had intended to say, the answers he’d prepared to respond to the unrest that has monopolized France’s attention, would have been lost amid the distress and prayers for Notre Dame, shared live by TV networks that abandoned their regular Monday night programming.

Instead, Macron spoke to the nation Tuesday. “What we’ve seen together in Paris overnight, it’s our ability to unite,” he said.

The front-page headline of the Liberation newspaper on Tuesday neatly captured how the fire has re-ordered the nation’s priorities.

“Notre Drame” — “Our Drama” — it read over a picture of the spire consumed by fire and smoke.

At his church in the west of Paris, the Rev. Guillaume de Menthiere felt the mood shift even as the cathedral was still spewing ash and smoke over the capital, as people filed in to pray at his church and to listen to its bells’ mournful tolling in solidarity for its big sister, Notre Dame.

The priest later said he was reminded of the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, another tragedy when the world seemed to stop spinning and which drew French mourners back into churches that dot every town but which also seem to have lost much of their hold over France, with its fiercely guarded red line between church and the secular state.

In 2001, France wept for the United States and the attacks’ victims from multiple countries. “We are all Americans,” newspaper Le Monde famously said.

This time, thankfully, no one died in the fire that appears to have started somewhere in Notre Dame’s roof, which had been getting a much-needed repair job. But the outpouring of emotion from across the globe was still huge: “We are all French,” the world now appears to be saying.

Ordained in Notre Dame nearly three decades ago, de Menthiere was too overcome to sleep once he got home. At dawn, he rose and marshaled his thoughts into words. In the fire, he identified glowing embers of hope that France is coming together.

“During these hours of anguish, I seemed to sense that the old Gallic cockerel was awaking from its torpor,” he wrote in an email to parishioners that fellow priests quickly shared.

“A mysterious communion seemed at last to be reigning over the people of France which the months gone by had so sadly shown to be in pieces and fractured,” he added. “This unity that a presidential message, planned for that same night, would probably not have succeeded in rebuilding, was accomplished before our dumbfounded eyes by Notre Dame.”

Parisians who went to bed fearful that the cathedral would be reduced to rubble were relieved when they awoke to learn that its two landmark bell towers are still standing, saved by hundreds of firefighters, and that not all of its treasures have been lost.

Like the proud, crowing and indomitable Gallic cockerel, long a symbol of France and featured on coins, flag poles, the presidential Elysee Palace and even the uniforms of the national soccer team, the French have been reminded that, in despair, they share deep wells of fortitude.

“That is the history of the French. We divide very often around things that we argue about but we then get together,” said Bertrand de Feydeau, vice president of a conservation group that was among those collecting donations and within hours had already raised more than 11 million euros ($12 million) in gifts of all sizes.

“Because the French have a lot of heart.”
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A Russian court has sentenced a Norwegian citizen to 14 years in prison over spying following a trial behind closed doors.

Russian authorities say Frode Berg, a retired border inspector, was detained in Moscow in December 2017 following a sting operation by Russia’s FSB security service. Berg, 63, was accused by the prosecution of espionage relating to Russia’s nuclear submarines.

The trial was held behind closed doors at the Moscow City Court for secrecy reasons.

On April 9, prosecutor Milana Digayeva demanded that Berg serve the sentence in a penal colony.

Digayeva said the accused was caught red-handed with the documents he had received from an employee of a military facility– Aleksei Zhitnyuk – who was shadowed by Russian intelligence.

Zhitnyuk was found guilty of high treason in December and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Berg’s lawyers have said that he admitted being a courier for Norway’s military intelligence, but that he had little knowledge of the operation he took part in.

A lawyer for Berg said on April 16 that his client will not appeal the sentence but will submit a plea for pardon after it comes into force.

Asked about a possible pardon for Berg, Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that he would wait for the verdict before assessing a possible plea.

Norwegian media reports said that Berg is a former border inspector.
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Thousands of state employees accused of supporting the Kurdish insurgency in their war against Turkey have lost their jobs — a mass crackdown that has forced many to make radical career changes. 

The largest number of firings have occurred in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, and have included teachers, civil servants and local municipality workers. 

Some of those dismissed workers are now employed at the Emekciler restaurant, founded by former court official Mustafa Ozer, who opened the restaurant with 22 of his fellow fired workers. 

“Of course, it is not that simple to be sacked from your job of 23 years,” Ozer said. “Suddenly one night, your whole life’s effort is taken from you. You are being marginalized, and you are denied the bread that you bring to your home.”

Ozer claims his dismissal had more to do with trade union activism than his support of Kurdish insurgents, and called his firing a release in many ways.

“There were daily, weekly lists of people who were sacked,” he said. “We were checking those lists every day to see if our name is on it. Every day, we had the panic. Our nerves were really stretched to the edge during this period. And eventually, our names appeared on the list, and our employment got terminated.”

Ozer and his partners contributed 11,000 lira (about $2,000) to start the restaurant. 

“Some of us have a master’s degree. Some are two-year college graduates,” said Ozer. “Some headed departments. Some were branch chiefs. Here is my colleague, Seyhmus. He used to work at the state employment agency,” added Ozer.

​Seyhmus, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, modestly admits he has few skills to offer.

“I can’t really cook, but I help with the running of the place. I don’t have such talent, unfortunately,” he said.

Seyhmus admits adjusting to the loss of a career in which he devoted his life was difficult, but the camaraderie he discovered at Emekciler restaurant helped. 

“I am OK now because I saw the true value of friendship. We are like a family here,” he said.

Many of Emekciler’s customers are former colleagues. Ozer said they visit, risking trouble at work for eating at a restaurant run by fired workers. 

Ankara defends the crackdown, claiming supporters of the Kurdish insurgency have deeply infiltrated the state across the region.

Local and international human rights groups have sharply criticized the firings, claiming most are arbitrary with little or no evidence to justify the dismissal. The government created an appeals process, but so far, less than 5% of applicants were successful.

Zeki Kanay, an academic at Diyarbakir’s Dicle University, lost his job after signing a petition calling for an end to the decades-long war with Kurdish insurgents.

Kanay turned to organic farming on a small plot of land outside city walls. He works the farm with other purged workers and has not yet made a profit. But he said there are other rewards.

“If we didn’t have that (the farm), life would be even harder, because this system pushes you to be alone, alienated,” he said. “It (the state) tries to instill fear and break us apart. However, on the contrary, we try to get closer to each other, and that’s how we all can stand on our feet now.”

​Bishar Ilci helped Kanay set up the farm. He is working to reintroduce native seeds to the region.

Ilci worked for Diyarbakir’s municipality until Mayor Gultan Kisanak of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) was removed from office and jailed, accused of supporting terrorism.

“I worked in the municipality for 10 years and managed good projects,” said Ilci. “There were various social projects. My last 2.5 years in the municipality was devoted to the (Syrian) Yazidi refugees. We initiated educational projects, vegetable gardens for each family, and ran activities, especially with women. We had done serious work on farming.“

Ilci said he has little hope of getting his job back.

“It feels like the state is trying to discipline us with hunger. We have to learn how to stand on our feet,” he said. “We have given a good struggle for Kurdish rights for many years in this region, and now we say, ‘Why can’t we do the same with the land, with animals? And why not help your people with healthy food?’”
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