Those who want to visit the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was ravaged by fire in 2019, may in the future have to pay an entrance fee, according to a proposal from France's Culture Minister Rachida Dati.
Dati believes that a ticket price of five euros could bring in 75 million euros per year for maintenance costs for religious properties in the country.
Nearly 4,000 protected religious buildings are in poor condition or even worse, the minister said at a conference for France's bishops on Monday.
However, the church is giving the proposal the cold shoulder.
Churches and cathedrals have "always been open to everyone", said Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort at the meeting, adding that a fee of this kind would be a "betrayal of this calling".
Notre Dame, which has been closed since the fire, is planned to reopen on December 7 after a five-year-long reconstruction that has cost nearly 700 million euros.
