PARIS.- For more than a century, the Sacré-Coeur Basilica has been towering over Paris, welcoming millions of visitors every year, but even with its undeniable popularity, it has not been afforded the substantial funding and protection normally given to such a landmark.

On Tuesday, Paris’ City Council finally voted to classify Sacré-Coeur as a “historical monument,” giving it the highest level of protection long granted to other sites such as the Louvre Museum and Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Although it might seem to be an easy decision, it was not.

The classification had long been delayed partly because of Sacré-Coeur’s history. The building was erected in the late 19th century at the behest of conservative political forces, on the spot where they had previously crushed in blood the Paris Commune revolution of 1871.

Since then, the basilica’s egg-shaped domes and Romanesque-Byzantine architecture have symbolized to the left the repression of the Commune, a short-lived revolution that shook Paris from March to May 1871 before being suppressed by the French army. Its building has regularly been the subject of controversies and heated debates, which continued even Tuesday.

“One cannot honor the Sacré-Coeur, regardless of what it symbolizes as a bloodstain on our Republic and on this unique revolution which is the Paris Commune,” Danielle Simonnet, a hard-left councilor said during a debate that preceded the vote.

In response, Rudolph Granier, a center-right councilor, denounced what he said was an anachronistic approach to Sacré-Coeur, which has primarily become a tourism attraction.

With 11 million visitors per year, the basilica is Paris’ second-most visited site after Notre-Dame. Standing atop the hill of Montmartre, its forecourt offers breathtaking panoramic views of the capital, and the building’s remarkable whiteness, due to a type of stone that whitens with rainwater, makes its shine out over the entire capital.

Tuesday’s vote now needs to be enshrined in a decree by the government of French President Emmanuel Macron, which supports the move. The listing as a French historical monument will make Sacré-Coeur, which is a property of Paris, eligible for more national subsidies, and any building work will be subject to the scrutiny of public authorities.

Éric Fournier, a historian at the University Panthéon-Sorbonne, said the project of the basilica was initiated by “French ultra-Catholics” who vowed to build a sanctuary dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to atone for France’s fault in the wake of a devastating defeat by Prussia in 1871.




The project soon gained the support of Parliament, dominated by conservatives, and the hill of Montmartre was chosen for its location because it was there that the first bishop of Paris, St. Denis, was put to death in the third century.

But Fournier said that this location was also a way to erase the memory of the revolutionary Commune, which began with the capture of cannons on the hill. After only 72 days, the Commune was besieged and then suppressed by the French army, with at least 7,000 insurgents killed during the so-called “bloody week.”

The basilica, Fournier added, “aimed at atoning for all the faults since the revolution of 1789.”

Since then, the fate of the basilica has been the subject of fierce debate, revealing the old beating heart of revolutionary Paris. In 2013, the leader of the Communist Party at the Paris City Council floated the idea of razing Sacré-Coeur.

In 2020, it was finally included in the register of historical monuments, the first step toward a classification, which was supposed to happen last year. But the move was eventually delayed under pressure from politicians from the Communist Party and from France Unbowed, a hard-left party, which denounced it as bad timing, coming on the year of the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune.

Before its expected classification this year, debates have emerged in newspaper columns. A historian, Pierre Nora, defended the move, arguing that it would symbolize the reconciliation between Catholic France and anticlerical France, while another said it would only further fan the flames of political division.

The group “Friends of the Commune 1871” also launched a petition to block the classification, arguing that it was “a provocation.”

At the Paris City Council on Tuesday, Raphaëlle Primet, a Communist councilor, said her party would “perceive this move as a profound attack against the action of the Commune members and our Republican history.”

Fournier said blocking the classification of the monument seemed to him “a backward fight.” He added that, in the eyes of Parisians, the basilica no longer symbolized the “moral order” of Catholic conservatism, but rather a place of gathering that is now part of the city’s heritage.

Karen Taïeb, a deputy mayor in charge of heritage, argued that the classification was primarily meant to protect the building’s architecture at a time when it is visited by millions of people. She added that the classification would also include a square standing at the foot of the Montmartre hill and bearing the name of Louise Michel, a famous female Commune fighter.

“There is no question through this resolution of forgetting the memorial aspect and the indefectible link between the commune and this part of Paris,” Taïeb said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.