I think "cétait" refers to it being "un cadeau" - presumably at some point in the past. It's the same in English, isn't it? For example: "I hate this tie, but it was a present from my wife".

Resending since there seems to be an HTML mark-up problem with my question.

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A question about Mayor Pete Buttigieg's now viral French comment on the fire at Notre Dame. Mayor Pete said:

"Au peuple de France je voudrais dire que la cathédrale Notre Dame, c’était comme un cadeau à l’espèce humaine. Nous partageons la douleur mais nous vous remercions aussi de ce cadeau à la civilisation."

Question: Why does he say "c’était " instead of "c'est"? After all, Notre Dame a) though damaged still survives (as French President Marcon quickly told us) and b) remains a gift of France to civilization. Thus in Mayor Pete's comment I see no past action or situation, discontinuous or otherwise (except the fire being extinguished), indicated in relation to Notre Dame. 

Consulting "Learn the French Past Tense (Imperfect / Imparfait)" [https://www.thoughtco.com/imperfect-french-past-tense-1368859] none of the 7 listed conditions for using the imparfait seem to apply. 

Is there perhaps an 8th and less commonly understand use of the imparfait, in which people who comment on tragic or emotional events use this verb form to soften the impact of their words, which sounds polite and respectful to a French-listening audience?

Simon, thank you. Looking forward to the follow-up.

Also (aaargh!), a correction to my original post: "Is there perhaps an 8th and less commonly understood use . . ."

Thank you so much mam for your quick response but, iam totally confused between the two.

I feel with you, Richa. That distinction isn't trivial and goes against the grain of how English uses these two tenses.

The reason you'd use imparfait in these examples lies buried in the fact that we are dealing with the verb être, to be. "Being" describes a state, and a state is considered distinct from an event. Describing states in the past, you use the imparfait. There's this group of verbs which are often used to describe states and, hence, are most often used with the imparfait tense.

Here is a link that explains this aspect further:

https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/passe-compose-vs-imparfait-2/

But "yesterday" implies a clear beginning and end, which often triggers the passé composé. So you have two competing guidelines, which is why it can be so confusing.

Laura gives the example: "Il a fait froid, hier."

Thanks a lot

@Alan: I know, it can be quite contradictory and confusing at times. I don't think there's a clear distinction and it probably depends on what you want to stress or emphasise. See, e.g., the sentence:

J'étais malade. -- I was sick, vs. J'ai été malade. -- I fell sick. Maybe in this context:

J'étais malade pendant les vacances. -- I was sick during (the entire) vacation. J'ai été malade pendant les vacances. -- I was sick during the vacation (maybe a day out of the entire week).

I wonder if we could get some input on this from a native speaker. Will ask one of my fallback resources. ;)

-- Chris.

See also:

https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/questions/view/l-annee-derniere-j-ai-ete-vraiment-malade-vs-l-annee-derniere-j-etais-vraiment-malade

There's an interesting discussion here, too:

https://french.stackexchange.com/questions/25999/imparfait-or-pass%C3%A9-compos%C3%A9-j%C3%A9tais-absent-or-jai-%C3%A9t%C3%A9-absent

I liked this guideline, which is perhaps similar to Cécile's last reply:

Move on or Dwell on

The passé composé is when you want to mention the action and move on.

The imparfait is when you want to dwell in the action and say what happened in the middle of it.

Its passe composee as the action is complete

Sanjiv, the choice of tense does not depend on whether the action is complete or not. The passé composé and the imparfait are both past tenses, so generally the actions referred to will be complete. It depends on whether you want to describe it as being complete or not.

I think it's more to do with the word "has". "She has always liked" is the present perfect tense, which is one of the other uses of the passé composé. 

If it had just been "she always liked", then I think you'd use the imperfect. The imperfect is used for actions that have no clear end, but they do have to be in the past. If it's still true today you use the present perfect, not the imperfect.

Whenever you think you know all of the uses of these tenses, another one pops up. I need to start making a guide book or something.

I thought past actions that continue into the presence are in the imperfect though? I even saw an example of it on here a while back (though it didn't use the present perfect). Better just remember that present perfect equals passé composé than try to find logic in it. 

Can you remember the example?