Privilege of the prince, Emmanuel Macron visited the cathedral in preview, a few days before its reopening, Friday November 29, and he shared this moment with more than a thousand lucky people. “The most involved”according to a formula used at the Elysée, to designate both the workers and restorers who brought the cathedral back to life, as well as the most generous donors who financed this project.
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Eight hundred and forty-three million euros were collected the day after the fire of April 15, 2019. Three hundred and forty thousand people contributed to this extraordinary sponsorship operation. Never seen before! The trombinoscope of Notre-Dame’s benefactors is dizzying: emperors of luxury and godfathers of capitalism, heirs and self-made men, a few celebrities and many anonymous people, children who have broken their piggy banks and retirees who dipped into their pensions, believers and atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims. And among these good fairies, some want no one to ignore their contribution.
“The Notre-Dame Foundation is the main financier of the restoration of the cathedral”thus triumphs the collecting body linked to the diocese of Paris in a press release. “We have the largest number of donors for Notre-Dame, 236,000 to be exact”adds Bertrand de Feydeau, vice-president of the Heritage Foundation. “Don’t forget the Americans, who gave so much!” »urges, from New York, Jean-Hugues Monier, a former member of the strategy consulting firm McKinsey, voluntarily involved in fundraising in the United States.
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Those who agreed to confide in Mondein person or through their advisors, vividly remember the evening of the fire. In neuropsychology, we speak of “flash memory” to designate the detailed memory of a significant event, such as man’s first steps on the Moon, in July 1969, or the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in November 1963 On April 15, 2019, Jean-Jacques Aillagon was at home in Finistère, where he retreats for half the week. The former Minister of Culture (2002-2004) heard the news of the disaster in front of his television screen. Immediately, he tried to contact François Pinault, whom he has advised for more than twenty years. Invited to the birthday of the economist Alain Minc at the restaurateur Guy Savoy, the Breton billionaire does not pick up. He only called back around 10:30 p.m., to inform him of a decision he had just made with his son François-Henri: he would give 100 million euros to rebuild Notre-Dame. His lifelong communicator, Anne Méaux, draws out a press release during the night.
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