Six new stained-glass windows by the French artist Claire Tabouret have been quietly fitted inside Notre-Dame de Paris, and the cathedral will reveal them to the public on 7 December. The installation, reported on 10 November, has gone ahead despite sustained opposition from heritage campaigners and a legal challenge that is still working its way through the courts.

The windows, made with the Simon-Marq workshop in Reims, give a richly coloured, figurative account of Pentecost and now line the southern aisle of the nave. For the moment they sit hidden behind red curtains, out of sight of visitors, until the unveiling early next month. The commission was championed by President Emmanuel Macron as part of the cathedral's rebirth after the 2019 fire, and it has divided opinion in France from the start.

The fiercest objection concerns what the new glass replaces. To make room for Tabouret's windows, six 19th-century panels designed by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc must come out. Critics argue that the architect conceived those windows as part of a single, coherent tribute to Gothic design, and that removing them breaks the visual unity of the restored interior. Supporters counter that a living cathedral should carry the mark of its own century, not only of the one that rebuilt it.

One court challenge to the project has already been overcome, but a second remains unresolved, leaving the unveiling to go ahead under a legal cloud. The row has become one of the most closely watched culture arguments in France this year, pitting the presidency's vision of renewal against defenders of the cathedral's 19th-century restoration.