JUDY WOODRUFF: Protesters
took to the streets of
Paris and other French
cities this weekend,

asking why billionaires and the
government have rushed to the
aid of the Notre Dame Cathedral

after its terrible fire, while
millions of ordinary French
citizens are being squeezed

economically.

Income inequality is just one
issue that may gain momentum
in the aftermath of the fire.

Stephane Gerson is the
English-language editor
of "France in the World:
A New Global History."

In his Humble Opinion, the fire
that ravaged Notre Dame should
force us all to take a look

at our other human-made crises.

STEPHANE GERSON, Institute of
French Studies, NYU: This past
Monday, my son sent me a text

that read simply: "Notre Dame."

I didn't know what he meant.

So he wrote again:
"It's on fire.

Terrible."

I turned on the TV and saw
the cathedral burn, the spire
collapse, the roof crash down.

I watched Parisians and
others cry along the Seine.

For a while, I thought of
moments in French history that
involved the cathedral, 1287,

the masons of Notre
Dame traveling across
Europe to show their
excellence in stonecutting,

or August 1944, Charles de
Gaulle coming under sniper
fire inside Notre Dame.

This is what historians
do in moments like these.

We go to the past.

But that night, I
also thought about our
present and our future.

We are horrified because Notre
Dame is the most poignant
reminder in this brittle age

of ours, this age of
accelerating climate
change and mass
displacement, that nothing

is eternal.

Hasn't Notre Dame
always been with us?

Hasn't it always stood strong,
stone rising into the skies,
tower standing guard, its

spire inviting us to aim
for something higher?

Monuments such as these enter
our collective heritage.

The mythic cathedral is
eternal and indestructible.

We are eternal and
indestructible.

But, no, look, Notre
Dame is burning.

The spire is collapsing.

The roof is crashing down,
unless it is our roof, our
collective roof that is crashing

down.

A century ago exactly,
in 1919, the writer
Paul Valery provided
reflected on the massive

destruction science had
wrought during World War I.

"We civilizations," he wrote
"now know that we are mortal.

Valery was telling us
that our civilization can
precipitate its own undoing.

His warning is not mere history.

We watched a cathedral burn.

And though we know that
cathedrals can rebuilt,
we feel something deeper.

Could it be the premonition that
some disasters, some fires are
so incandescent that nothing

remains afterwards,
not even civilization?

There is a theory that disasters
can shake the status quo.

By suspending the usual order,
by displaying its failures, they
can open up new solidarities

and maybe, in this case,
collective responses to
environmental destruction
and forced migration.

The emotions we experienced
before a shared ordeal, shock
and sorrow, empathy, immersion

in the moment, can bring
us together around a
vision of the common good.

I had been skeptical about
this theory in the past, but
the emotion we felt watching

the cathedral burn, the
emotion we felt imagining
a world burning, might
this emotion then allow

us to avert further
destruction, to work
together towards a different
future, not only for the

cathedral, but also
for human civilization?

"Notre Dame, it's on fire.

Terrible."

As I reread my son's texts,
I have to hope that this
time will be different.

JUDY WOODRUFF: French
historian Stephane Gerson.