Worshippers in safety hats attend Notre-Dame's first mass since fire

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PARIS (Reuters) - A small congregation in white hard hats attended mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Saturday, the first service since fire devastated the Gothic landmark two months ago.

The Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit leads the first mass in a side chapel two months to the day after a devastating fire engulfed the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, in Paris, France June 15, 2019. Karine Perret/Pool via REUTERS

Church leaders are keen to show life goes on at the cathedral as donations for rebuilding trickle in.

Less than 10% of the 850 million euros ($953 million) pledged by billionaires, business leaders and others has been received so far, the French government said.

The mass, which commemorates the cathedral’s consecration as a place of worship, was held in a side-chapel left undamaged by the April 15 fire, with attendance limited to about 30 people wearing protective headgear.

Priests in ceremonial garb of white robes and yellow stoles briefly parted with their hard hats during the communion.

“It is with much emotion that we are here to celebrate the consecration of the cathedral,” said Paris’s archbishop Michel Aupetit, who led the service.

“It is a message of hope and thanks to all those who were moved by what happened to this cathedral,” he added, acknowledging afterwards it was “a bit strange” to celebrate mass with a helmet.

The service was broadcast live on a religious TV channel that showed poignant images of the blue sky through the collapsed roof and the black rubble still clogging the building.

On Friday, France’s Culture Minister Franck Riester said the cathedral was still in a fragile state, especially the vault.

The blaze caused the roof and spire of the architectural masterpiece to collapse, triggering worldwide sadness.

Among those who promised to donate to the rebuilding effort were luxury goods tycoons Bernard Arnault and François-Henri Pinault.

“There could be people who promised to donate then in the end did not,” Riester told France 2 television, without giving further details. “But more importantly, and this is normal, the donations will be paid as restoration work progresses.”

President Emmanuel Macron has set a target of five years for restoring the cathedral, though Riester was more cautious.

“The president was right to give a target, an ambition,” he said. “But obviously what matters in the end is the quality of the work. So it does not mean that work will be totally finished in exactly five years.”

($1 = 0.8923 euros)

Editing by Helen Popper and Mike Harrison

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NATO faces big bill if it does not pick AWACS successor soon: officials

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PARIS (Reuters) - NATO faces significant costs if it does not act soon to choose a successor for its ageing fleet of 14 Boeing E-3A Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS) surveillance aircraft, often called the alliance’s “eyes in the sky”, senior officials said.

FILE PHOTO: A NATO AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems) aircraft approaches the Air Base number 5 during the Real Thaw 2018 exercise in Monte Real, Portugal February 6, 2018. REUTERS/Rafael Marchante/File Photo

Michael Gschossmann, general manager of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agency that manages the AWACS fleet, said he expected to finalize by December a $750 million contract with U.S. arms maker Boeing Co to extend the life of the aircraft through 2035, with $250 million more earmarked for design, spare parts and testing.

But he said it was critical to decide quickly how to replace the 1979/1980-era airplanes, with their distinctive radar domes on the fuselage, or NATO would need to take costly steps to keep them flying even longer.

“We have to get moving on this. We have to ensure that the studies move along quickly. We need a reality check,” he said.

The AWACS planes are among the few military assets owned and operated by NATO, rather than individual states. They are used to conduct missions such as air policing, support for counter-terrorism operations, evacuations, and crisis response.

Gschossmann told Reuters NATO could follow the lead of member states Britain and Turkey in purchasing the E-7, a newer radar plane also built by Boeing. Those aircraft, he said, were large enough to add potential new capabilities, such as operating drones for expanded surveillance, in coming years.

“We have to ensure that we acquire a system that has growth potential, but that also – for financial and time reasons – is based on existing capabilities,” he said.

NATO is considering the AWACS replacement issue as part of a broader study of surveillance, but the process has dragged out given rapidly changing threats and newly emerging capabilities.

France and the United States also operate E-3A aircraft and could potentially buy E-7 planes in coming years, which could lower costs by generating larger order quantities.

“Why don’t we bet on the proven technology that we already have in the E-7 and provide NATO with a certain number of those aircraft? That would give us a basic capability that could be expanded in the future,” he said.

George Riebling, deputy general manager of the agency and a former senior U.S. official, said NATO was running out of time.

“If you don’t have an idea of what you’re going to do to replace NATO AWACS, then the ‘F’ in Final Lifetime Extension Programme (FLEP) can’t stand for final,” he said.

“There will be things we need to do to the NATO E-3A fleet to keep it flying past 2040.”

The FLEP program will update the aircraft’s mission system, as well as the processors for its electronic support measures (ESM) antenna. But it does not cover the radar itself, which would have doubled the cost.

Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne

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Worshippers in hard hats to attend Notre-Dame's first mass since fire

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PARIS (Reuters) - A small congregation wearing hard hats will attend mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Saturday, the first service to be held since fire devastated the Gothic landmark two months ago.

FILE PHOTO: A picture shows bells gathered during preliminary work at the Notre-Dame Cathedral one month after it sustained major fire damage in Paris, France May 15, 2019. Philippe Lopez/Pool via REUTERS

Church leaders are keen to show life goes on at the cathedral as donations to help rebuild it trickle in. Less than 10% of the 850 million euros pledged by billionaires, business leaders and others has been received so far, the French government said.

Saturday’s mass, which commemorates the cathedral’s consecration as a place of worship, is due to be held at 1600 GMT in a side-chapel, with attendance limited to about 30 people who will wear the protective headgear for safety reasons.

“It is a nice symbol. A very small group of people will attend and one can understand why as there are still major safety issues,” Culture Minister Franck Riester told Europe 1 radio.

He told France 2 television on Friday the cathedral was still “in a fragile state, namely the vault, which has not yet been secured. It can still collapse”.

The April 15 blaze caused the roof and spire of the architectural masterpiece to collapse, triggering a worldwide outpouring of sadness as well as the multi-million-euro pledges for reconstruction work.

Among the high-profile people who promised to donate to the rebuilding effort were luxury goods tycoons Bernard Arnault and François-Henri Pinault.

“There could be people who promised to donate then in the end did not,” Riester said, without giving further details. “But more importantly, and this is normal, the donations will be paid as restoration work progresses.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has set a target of five years for restoring the cathedral, though Riester was more cautious.

“The president was right to give a target, an ambition. But obviously what matters in the end is the quality of the work,” he said. “So it does not mean that work will be totally finished in exactly five years.”

The archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit will lead Saturday’s service, which will be broadcast live on a religious TV channel.

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Barcelona's acting mayor set to win re-election, keep out separatists

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FILE PHOTO - Ada Colau, the Mayor of Barcelona, issues a statement in Barcelona, Spain, October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Barcelona’s acting far-leftist mayor Ada Colau may win a second term in office on Saturday with the support of the Socialists and representatives backed by former French premier Manuel Valls - in a deal aimed at preventing a Catalan pro-independence leader taking the job.

Local elections in May produced a fragmented result in Spain’s second-largest city: Colau’s Barcelona en Comu (Barcelona in Common) and the separatist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalonia’s Republican Left) parties each won 10 seats, while the Socialists got eight and Valls’ group took six.

City hall votes to pick a new mayor on Saturday. The winning candidate will need the support of 21 representatives.

The outcome has national importance because Spain’s acting Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez may need the support of Esquerra Republicana to be re-elected by parliament in the coming weeks.

Colau’s party said on Friday its members had voted in favor of her seeking a new term in a deal with the Catalan Socialist Party.

Valls, born in Barcelona to a Catalan father and Swiss-Italian mother, has said he would support Colau or Socialist candidate Jaume Collboni as mayor to avoid a secessionist taking the job.

But if no candidate wins the support of 21 representatives, Esquerra’s Ernest Maragall would take the job as his party won 5,000 more votes than Barcelona en Comu in the May election.

Reporting by Joan Faus; Editing by Hugh Lawson

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French, Italian shipbuilders forge naval alliance

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PARIS (Reuters) - France and Italy forged a military shipbuilding alliance on Friday, as state-controlled Naval Group and Fincantieri signed off on a 50-50 joint venture that will bid for Franco-Italian warship projects and sell to the world market.

FILE PHOTO: A sub-scale sized model of a Corvette by Fincantieri is displayed at Euronaval, the world naval defence exhibition in Le Bourget near Paris, France, October 23, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

The alliance reflects the two countries’ desire to fend off competition in naval shipbuilding from the likes of China, the United States and Russia.

It is targeting orders worth up to 5 billion euros ($5.63 billion) over the next decade. Naval Group said the joint venture aims to build 10-15 warships in that period, with synergies estimated at 10-15%.

“It is the product of a shared industrial ambition,” Herve Guillou, chief executive of Naval Group told reporters on a call.

“We are by far the two biggest naval shipbuilders in Europe, but we cannot remain competitive and maximize our resources if we rely only on our domestic markets.”

The joint venture does not entail a share swap between the two groups.

France and Italy first outlined plans to deepen naval shipbuilding cooperation in September 2017.

However, political and business relations between the two euro zone powerhouses have become increasingly fraught since then and uncertainty hangs over other deals.

Earlier this month, Fiat Chrysler withdrew its proposal for a 35 billion euro merger with Renault, with both the Italian-American carmaker and Rome blaming French government interference for the deal’s collapse.

Meanwhile, at France’s request, the European Union’s antitrust chief is examining Fincantieri’s purchase of a 50% stake in French shipbuilder Chantiers de l’Atlantique, formerly STX, a move which irritated Fincantieri and Rome.

Fincantieri top executives recently said they were confident of winning approval from Brussels, but that it could take some months.

The joint venture between Fincantieri and Naval Group, in which French defense company Thales has a 35% stake, seeks to balance power within the alliance.

That has been a stumbling block for other Franco-Italian mergers such as the troubled Essilor-Luxottica tie-up.

The new enterprise will be headquartered in Genoa, with its engineering center based in France’s southern Var region.

Its chief executive Claude Centofanti is a Frenchman and its chairman, Giuseppe Bono, an Italian who is also CEO of Fincantieri.

The two companies have said they will look for efficiencies by taking advantage of their bigger scale, jointly conducting some research and sharing test facilities.

Guillou said the market for mid-size to large frigates was growing 5-7% a year. “It’s also where the emerging competition is attacking us the hardest,” he added.

He said there was potential for Naval Group and the new JV to derive synergies too from the Fincantieri-Chantiers de l’Atlantique tie-up, but a go-ahead from Brussels would be needed before they can be more deeply explored.

But he added that the setting up of the venture and the merger between Fincantieri and Chantier were separate issues, downplaying analysts’ hopes the JV could make it easier to win the go-ahead for Fincantieri-Chantier.

Naval Group holds a minority stake in Chantiers de l’Atlantique.

“We could imagine buying steel benefitting from scale of volume,” Guillou said. “When you think about what vessels of the future might look like, and cleaner energies, it’s not something that will only interest military shipbuilders.”

Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Jan Harvey

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Musicians lament reported loss of recordings in decade-old Universal fire

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Several big-name musicians voiced dismay on Wednesday that some of their recordings may have been among thousands of original masters that The New York Times Magazine reported were lost in the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot fire of 2008.

FILE PHOTO: A fire truck and firefighters are seen at Gate 2 of Universal Studios as smoke rises (background) from a fire that rages out of control at the backlot filled with movie sets in Universal City, California June 1, 2008. REUTERS/Fred Prouser/File Photo

The blaze, which gutted a popular “King Kong” attraction and a swath of the studio’s fabled outdoor lot, also destroyed nearly all the master recordings stored there in a Universal Music Group archive, a loss that has long gone undisclosed, the magazine reported on Tuesday.

Universal Music estimated in a confidential 2009 report that the loss encompassed about 500,000 song titles, the article said.

In a statement on Wednesday, the company called the incident “deeply unfortunate,” but said the Times story contained “numerous inaccuracies, misleading statements, contradictions and fundamental misunderstandings of the scope of the incident.”

The extent of the loss, documented in litigation and company records the article cited, was largely kept from the public eye through a concerted effort on the part of the music label, the magazine said.

Many of the artists whose own material was reported to have been destroyed expressed shock.

“Oh my Lord ... this makes me sick to my stomach,” singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow wrote on Twitter, posted with a link to the article. “And shame on those involved in the coverup.”

The rock band R.E.M said in a Twitter statement that concerned fans were making inquiries. “We are trying to get good information to find out what happened, and the effect on the band’s music, if any,” the group tweeted.

Original sound recordings of many of the greatest names in popular music since the 1940s - from Louis Armstrong and Judy Garland to Tom Petty and 50 Cent - are believed to have gone up in smoke in what the article described as “the biggest disaster in the history of the music business.”

Master recordings are typically owned and controlled by the music labels for the artists in their catalog. But they are seen as vital to musicians’ legacy as they are original, one-of-a-kind recordings considered the truest representation of sounds captured in the studio.

Masters are the source material for all reproductions, including re-releases and remixes, made for distribution, whether on digital medium or vinyl.

Universal Music Group, now owned by French media conglomerate Vivendi, said the fire “never affected the availability of the commercially released music nor impacted artists’ compensation.”

The New York Times article “ignores the tens of thousands of back catalog recordings that we have already issued in recent years, including master-quality, high-resolution, audiophile versions of many records that the story claims were ‘destroyed,’” Universal Music said.

Irving Azoff, manager for the group Steely Dan, said in a statement that the musicians had “been aware of ‘missing’ original Steely Dan tapes for a long time now.”

“We’ve never been given a plausible explanation,” Azoff said. “Maybe they burned up in the big fire. In any case, it’s certainly a lost treasure.”

Krist Novoselic, a founding member of the 1990s grunge band Nirvana, responded to a fan on Twitter asking whether the Times article meant that the masters for the group’s landmark “Nevermind” album were gone. He wrote: “I think they are gone forever.”

Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler

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