The town hall of Bordeaux proceeded on Thursday to dismantle the door of the town hall, set on fire on March 23 on the sidelines of a demonstration against the pension reform. Workers removed the frame from the top of the charred door with a circular saw. The work, scheduled to last all day because of the weight of the structure – between 2.5 and 3 tonnes – and the fragility of the hooks on the stones, was completed Thursday in the middle of the afternoon.
A temporary door, a trompe-l’oeil replica of the previous one, must be installed on Friday. The total amount of the operation, including the future installation of a permanent door and the repair of damaged stones, is estimated at 600,000 euros by the town hall of Bordeaux.
Determine if it is indeed the original door
The burnt door “will be entrusted to a local carpentry company specializing in ancient monuments, historical and heritage works, which will have to examine it to find out if it was really the original door” of the Rohan palace, built in the 18th century, specified the mayor of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic.
A public consultation should be held “soon”, both online and by vote in the offices of the town halls of the districts, in order to choose the future entry. Two solutions are on the table: either an identical reproduction of the door, or a contemporary creation.
The massive wooden door had been set on fire on the evening of March 23, after a day of demonstration against the pension reform enamelled with overflows and a few days before the visit to France, in particular to Bordeaux, of King Charles III of England, finally canceled the day after. Four people were indicted in this investigation a few days after the fire. A fifth person, a 17-year-old minor, was indicted last week.