Koroush, I understand you have a stong opinion about this.

But this archbishop lives in Australia, not France. He does not know the few following facts.

- there were indeed fires in french churches those past few years but exactly for the same reasons Notre-Dame burnt: accidents during renovation works. It was not criminal arsons due to some atheist activists.

- François-Henri Pinault who is a french billionaire (and Salma Hayek husband) spends a lot in arts and opened a foundation in Venice. If you dig modern art it's an amazing museum to visit. I don't deny he could be motivated by catholic faith but he's known as a art lover not as a catholic.

You never said that I am an ignorant American... that was MY admission. Some of us in the USA really are dumb about things outside our country. I try to keep up a little, but I'm certainly not very smart about such things.

And I do mourn the loss of this building. I hate to lose any history.

P.S. We are not sure how our Electoral College system works any more either. :) When people were farther apart and communications were not good, and some people just didn't know literally ANYTHING about the government, it made some sense to have representatives to pick the president (the whole idea of the Electoral College.) But the time when that was necessary is long past.

Like the right to bear Arms I guess...

Another thing we have difficulties to understand here.

Thanks for my English Eric, you're too kind.

However, we haven't made enough changes - like the second amendment that you mention. But it seems harder and harder to find people willing to understand that we need to change the Constitution to fit our modern lives. 

What amazes me is the fact that it seems ok to live in such a dangerous environment for no valid reason...

Hey, didn't we drift radically from the topic??

You mean... why should they not get tax breaks?

I'm sorry... I was a little bit confused after reading the article.

You must we're living troubled times in France. There is a contestation movement that started in november and it's targeting the government and the rich families which are accused to avoid taxes by all means.

As soon as Mr Pinault, Mr Arnault and Mr Dassault talked about these huge donations, they were instantly criticized because of tax breaks in a country where you hear everyday that you don't have enough money to resolve problems.

Obviously they tried to ease things down with the announcement  that they won't get tax breaks.

French Government just announced that they will make adopt a new law just to rule the donation campaign for Notre-Dame.

So should they? Apparently they made their choice... if it was not influenced by the government.