Emmanuel Macron welcomes a “chapter of which we can be proud”

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 project of the century” constituted a “ challenge that many considered senseless and that we will meet.” In a bad position politically, Emmanuel Macron is betting a lot on this meeting, which he 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 advisers hope that he will relaunch himself with Notre-Dame”, but “he will only draw political capital from it in the long term”, whispers a close friend of Emmanuel Macron.

1,300 contributors present

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, November 29 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.

Spectacular effect

In a tour 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 mondiovision, 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.

Only five years later

“You see the cathedral as you have never seen it”, “five years after the vision of desolation”, said Philippe Jost, the head of 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.