Macron’s ‘successful gamble’ with Notre-Dame

“We did it”: On Friday, November 29, Emmanuel Macron was so moved by the success of his gamble that he couldn’t wait any longer. A week before the grand ceremony scheduled for December 7 to mark the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral, to which some 100 heads of state will be invited, the French president savored, almost on his own, the results of the huge work undertaken by craftsmen, artisans, carpenters, master glassmakers, rope makers and other experts in historic monuments to restore the architectural jewel, destroyed by fire five years earlier.

“How beautiful it is,” he marveled from the cathedral’s forecourt, gazing upward as if to thank God, while the cameras filmed the interior of Notre-Dame’s nave. Bareheaded, without a helmet, he strolled, spellbound, past the altar, under the roof structure, through the chapels, admiring the building’s cleaned marble and restored gilding. Praising each and every one of the trades, he celebrated the feat accomplished.

Officially, Macron’s seventh and final visit to the site – accompanied by the capital’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, the archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, and Philippe Jost, the director of the public establishment in charge of restoring Notre-Dame, who replaced General Jean-Louis Georgelin after his death in 2023 – was intended to thank benefactors and the 2,000 or so people who have worked day and night, directly or indirectly, on the project. The cathedral has been restored identically, using traditional methods.

The visit was a way to pay tribute to French generosity and expertise. It also marked the end of a chapter before the cathedral is officially “returned” to the Church. But unofficially, the event, described by the Elysée Palace as a ” brilliant day,” served as a political platform for a president in need of a boost. The achievement of Notre-Dame was also his own, as those close to him pointed out, insisting that it was “the president who gave the impetus.”

Standing in the central aisle of Notre-Dame, before an audience of architects, logisticians, restorers and carpenters proud to unveil the result of five years’ hard work, Macron recalled the tragedy of April 2019, that “nightmare,” as he called it. The fire that ravaged the building had provoked an international outpouring of grief, and even triggered a bout of tremors in then prime minister Edouard Philippe, which he described in his book Places that say (“Places that Speak”).

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