PARIS (NYTIMES, REUTERS) - President Emmanuel Macron of France on Thursday (July 9) dropped the unpopular idea of building a modern spire atop a restored Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a possibility he had floated after a devastating fire sent the previous spire crashing through the roof.

Just days after a blaze tore through the beloved cathedral in April last year, Mr Macron, surprising many, suggested replacing the lost spire with a "contemporary architectural gesture."

French authorities proposed a prestigious international architectural competition to replace the spire, leading to a flurry of preliminary proposals that ranged from the modern to the madcap, including a beam of light, glass-covered gardens and a 300-foot, carbon-fiber flame.

But the idea of a modern spire never caught on with critics or the public, and Mr Macron never committed to it.

Polls showed a majority in favor of restoring the 19th-century spire designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, a French architect who headed a major restoration of the cathedral.

The original spire, which stood for 5 1/2 centuries, deteriorated badly and was removed in the 18th century.

Mr Macron's office said in a statement Thursday that he had "become convinced" that Notre Dame had to be restored in a way that was "as true as possible" to its "complete, coherent and last known state."

The presidency also acknowledged that Mr Macron, who had set a tight, five-year deadline to reopen the cathedral for worship and tourism by 2024, did not want to "delay" or "complicate" the reconstruction with an architectural competition.

Instead, the area surrounding the cathedral could be modernised with a "contemporary gesture," in "close collaboration" with Paris City Hall, Macron's office said, without providing details.

Jean-Michel Léniaud, a historian and Viollet-le-Duc expert who sits on a council advising the task force in charge of restoring Notre Dame, expressed satisfaction with the decision.

"Notre Dame is a national and international symbol" that unites people, he said, and departing from its world-famous architecture would have had a "divisive effect."

"Would we paint the White House red, for modernity's sake?" Mr Léniaud said.

Macron's decision came right after the National Heritage and Architecture Commission, an advisory body that handles important restoration projects, unanimously approved recommendations by architects that Notre Dame be restored to its prior state.

That includes rebuilding the spire as designed by Viollet-le-Duc and using original materials like wood for the roofing, in order to "guarantee the authenticity, the harmony and the coherence of this masterpiece of Gothic architecture," the restoration task force said in a statement Thursday.

The president's office said that Mr Macron trusted the commission's "expertise."

"I am happy that the French, pilgrims and visitors from around the world will once again meet with the cathedral that they love," General Jean-Louis Georgelin, a former army chief of staff named by Macron to head the task force, said in the statement.

The fire last year destroyed the latticework of huge, ancient timbers that made up Notre Dame's attic, melted the roof's lead sheath and endangered the overall stability of the iconic stone structure that had stood for eight centuries.

Molten metal, flaming beams and the spire fell into the cathedral's interior, doing further damage.

Progress toward restoring Notre Dame has been halting.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, workers had to shore up the building to prevent it from collapsing, but bad weather, worries over lead contamination and the coronavirus pandemic - which led to a temporary shutdown of the site - prevented them from doing much more.

Most recently, workers hanging from ropes have started using handsaws to delicately remove about 40,000 pieces of charred, twisted scaffolding - remnants of prior renovations that were melted in the fire.

The old scaffolding, which weighs about 200 tons, has to be taken down before the architects can fully assess the state of the building and plan its reconstruction.

Church officials hope Notre-Dame will be open for mass by 2024, when Paris is due to host the Olympic Games.