France offered the world its first look inside the restored Notre Dame cathedral on Friday, as President Emmanuel Macron inspected the medieval landmark, five years after a fire destroyed the interior and toppled it.
Eight days before the cathedral’s reopening on December 7, Macron held an inspection, which was broadcast live on television, and gave the first official view of the 850-year-old building now looking inside.
“Sulima,” said a visibly delighted Macron, accompanied by the Archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, the Minister of Culture, the Mayor of Paris and other officials.
“It’s much nicer,” he added, praising the pale-colored stones of Notre Dame and saying that everyone involved in the reconstruction should be “proud.”
Accompanied by his wife Brigitte, Macron toured the cathedral’s most important areas, including the nave, choir and chapel, and spoke to experts.
Notre Dame will once again welcome visitors and worshipers on the weekend of December 7-8, following a difficult restoration to return the imposing Paris cathedral to its former glory after it was badly damaged by fire on April 19, 2019.
Macron set an ambitious goal at the time to rebuild the masterpiece of Gothic architecture within five years and make it “even more beautiful” than before, a goal that French authorities say has been met.
The “building of the century” was a “challenge that many considered crazy,” Macron said on the eve of Friday’s visit.
France’s president hopes the reopening of Notre Dame will be a major feather in his cap amid the current political deadlock following summer parliamentary elections.
World leaders are expected to attend, but the guest list has not yet been released.
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Expensive restoration
About 250 companies and hundreds of experts were brought in for the restoration work costing hundreds of millions of euros.
All 2,000 people who contributed to the effort have been invited to Friday’s event, of which at least 1,300 are expected to attend.
“This last site visit is an opportunity to be particularly grateful: from wood craftsmen to metal and stone craftsmen, from scaffolding to roofers, from bell makers to art restorers, from goldsmiths to masons and sculptors, from carpenters to organ builders, architects, archaeologists, engineers and planners to logistical and administrative functions,” Macron said. .
The restoration cost a total of almost 700 million euros (more than 750 million dollars at today’s rate).
It was financed from 846 million euros received from 150 countries in an unprecedented surge of solidarity.
The 19th century Gothic spire has now been revived with an exact copy of the original, the stained windows have regained their color, the walls shine after being cleaned of fire stains and the restored organ is ready to thunder again.
Invisible to visitors is a new mechanism to protect against future fires, a discreet pipe system ready to release millions of drops of water in the event of a new disaster.
Notre Dame, which welcomed 12 million visitors in 2017, expects to receive an even higher number of 14 to 15 million after it reopens, according to church officials.
French ministers have also floated the idea of charging tourists to enter the site, but the Paris diocese said it was an important principle to maintain free entry.
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Re-opening ceremony
Macron had hoped to speak inside Notre Dame to mark the reopening, but after negotiations with the diocese, he was now only to speak in the lobby.
France is a secular country with a strict separation between church and state according to its constitution.
The next day, December 8, Sunday, the first mass and the consecration of the new altar will take place.
Macron said in December 2023 that he had invited Pope Francis to the cathedral’s reopening, but the head of the Catholic Church announced in September, to the surprise of some observers, that he would not be coming.
Instead, the pontiff is making an important visit to the French island of Corsica next weekend.
The French Catholic Church has been hit by a series of sexual abuse allegations against clergy in recent years, most recently by a monk known as Abbe Pierre, who became known for helping the poor.
More than five years on, the cause of the fire is under investigation, and initial findings support an accidental cause, such as a short circuit, a welder’s torch or a cigarette.
