The central Paris landmark has been severely damaged by a fire that broke out beneath the roof of the cathedral early in the evening of April 15th. Here are a few images from the Wikimedia Commons page on the fire:
Officials were quick to announce that the fire was not the result of terrorist action … while the fire was still raging (that is, before anyone could have made any scientific determination on the cause), which only made those inclined to suspect terrorist activity even more suspicious. Conspiracy theorists gotta theorize, after all. Robert Harris discusses this aspect of the story at the New English Review:
Ruling out any cause other than accidental fire, at such an early stage, did seem to be an assumption made with [undue] rapidity, not least because it occurred within a week of Easter when such a religious landmark would be a prime target within a city and a nation that has suffered more than its share of acts of Islamist terrorism, and especially at a time when numerous French churches have been targeted.
The international media was similarly unanimous in describing the cause of the blaze, with some carrying critical coverage of Youtube’s automated topical descriptors linking the event with 9/11. Even Fox News’ Shepard Smith was rather more than simply unwilling to entertain the speculations of one French interviewee that tried to note some of the above surrounding circumstances.
Prima facie, it might have also been thought that it was peculiar that such a serious fire became so advanced during a time of day when the cathedral would have been in use by public visitors. There have been numerous serious fires during periods of restoration, as the mainstream media rightly noted, but less mentioned was the likely fact that such work would have ceased some hours before smoke became visible.
[…]
The prospect of a terrorist act rears but there is perhaps some reason to assume a non-terrorist motive because there doesn’t seem to have been any claims of responsibility. It may be thought that any Islamist organisation linked with the blaze of such a major Christian/Western landmark would be very keen to boast about the deed on social media when the story hit the international news. Alternatively, the inferno could have been caused by a lone-wolf terrorist attack but such individuals commonly swear allegiance to a particular group and/or make some sort of public statement before a given attack.
If religiously motivated terrorism can be deemed to be unlikely at this stage, obvious alternatives still remain, such as an act of criminal arson or non-religious terrorism in which the perpetrators might be less keen to voice their involvement with the crime. For example, the blaze could have been an act of secular quasi-terrorism/arson/vandalism by the left-wing ‘Black-Bloc’, which has been responsible for much of the recent violence within the ‘Yellow Vest’ protest movement. It may therefore be suggested that the French authorities came to an unduly prompt reaction, given the surrounding circumstances.
