Notre-Dame de Paris revealed this Friday, November 29 to the world its “brilliance” regained five years after the devastating fire of April 2019, thanks to a final site visit by Emmanuel Macron who intends to pride himself on having met its “insane challenge” of reopening in five years. “It’s sublime,” exclaimed the Head of State upon discovering the reconstructed cathedral in all its whiteness and length, during a stroll broadcast live on several French and international channels. “It is much more hospitable with this blond stone”, cleaned of the dirt accumulated over the decades, he added, assuring the speakers that they could “be proud”.
Emmanuel Macron predicted a “shock of hope” during the reopening of Notre-Dame which will be “as strong as that of the fire” in April 2019. “The Notre-Dame blaze was a national wound and you were its remedy through will, through work, through commitment […] You have achieved what we thought was impossible,” the President of the Republic told the artisans present.
A big week before the reopening with great fanfare and the return of the public, the weekend of December 7 and 8, the president writes, in a document distributed to the media this week, that this “construction of the century” constituted a ” challenge that many considered senseless and that we will meet.” In a bad position politically, Emmanuel Macron is banking heavily on this meeting, which he has elevated to the rank of “French pride” with the successful Olympic Games last summer. He has invited a large number of foreign leaders next weekend in the hope of making it a global event, but the list of those present is not yet known, and Pope Francis preferred to go to Corsica for a week later rather than in Paris. “The president’s advisors hope that he will relaunch with Notre-Dame”, but “he will only draw political capital from it in the long term”, whispers a close friend of Emmanuel Macron.
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The latter for a time hoped to speak in the cathedral during the reopening, but after tough negotiations with the diocese, he will speak in the square only. It is therefore this Friday that he will speak in Notre-Dame, for a speech of thanks during which he should exalt “French know-how”, a “collective success”, a “chapter of which we can be proud”.
All 2,000 people who contributed to the work were invited, of whom more than 1,300 were present, wood, metal and stone craftsmen, scaffolders and roofers, campanists, gilders, sculptors and even architects. Patrons are also in the spotlight, while the construction project of the century, which cost some 700 million euros, was financed exclusively by donations.
In a route of around ten stations, from the square to the framework, including the nave, the transept crossing and the Saint-Marcel chapel, the visit has been designed to show the main achievements of this titanic project. Quite a symbol, the stop at the base of the spire, reconstructed identically to that of Viollet-le-Duc which collapsed on April 15, 2019 on mondovision, raising a wave of global emotion.
The stroll was punctuated by presidential comments. “The altar imposes itself but does not overwhelm”, he slips into the nave, “it’s a real forest”, “this tangle is incredible”, he judges under the framework. The Élysée, in presenting this visit to the press, did not skimp on superlatives, using the word “brilliance” no less than twenty times. “Wonder”, “striking” view, “fireworks of colors”: presidential advisers promised a breathtaking spectacle, and a striking contrast with the “yawning vault”, the “charred waste” and the smell “unbearable” that Emmanuel Macron discovered on the evening of the fire.
“You see the cathedral as you have never seen it”, “five years after the vision of desolation”, said Philippe Jost, the person responsible for the restoration, during the visit. “I remember as if it were yesterday the Pietà which alone emerged” from the debris, replied the president, accompanied by his wife Brigitte Macron and the Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich. The flames, the causes of which have still not been determined, had notably ravaged the roof and the frame of this masterpiece of Gothic art from the 12th century, which is among the most visited monuments in Europe.