PEOPLE AROUND THE world were shocked at the sight of the Notre Dame Cathedral engulfed flames last night, as firefighters battled to contain the blaze while the world watched on.
French fire services tackling the blaze have said that the main structure of the building was “saved and preserved”, although the spire and the main roof has collapsed.
President Michael D Higgins offered Ireland’s solidarity with France, while US President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter air-dropping water onto the 850-year old structure (French firefighters replied to say that could cause the whole structure to collapse).
So what has been the reaction elsewhere to the near-destruction of a world-famous historic structure? Here are a few front pages from around the world to gage the mood.
Starting in France, Catholic newspaper La Croix captures the moment the spire of the cathedral collapses, under the headline “heart in ashes”.
The left-leaning Libération has the headline “Notre Drame” or “our tragedy” on what is a very dramatic front page.
In Ireland, the Irish Times front page also captures the moment the spire collapsed.
In the UK, the Daily Mail called the blaze “an unholy inferno”, the Metro said that the “World Weeps for Notre Dame”, and The Sun headlined with “Notre Doom”.
The Independent had the striking line on its front page that “nine centuries of history [was] brought crashing down in just 63 minutes”.
In solidarity with the French people, The Scotsman had its front page headline in French: “La tragédie de Notre Dame”.
In Spain, the ‘paper of record’ ABC goes with the headline “Arde Notre Dame, Memoria Cristiana de Europa,” or “Notre Dame burns, a Christian memory of Europe”; while El País explains the structure of Notre Dame in this graphic.
El País has also compiled a number of illustrations and cartoons of the inferno,that try to capture the mood.
The New York Times headlined with “A France in Turmoil Weeps for a Symbol of Paris’s Enduring Identity”, while the Salt Lake Tribune made the connection between the Statue of Liberty and the country that gifted her to the US in this cartoon.
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