Notre-Dame or the strength of France’s soft power

Liturgical celebration, architectural and technical event, diplomatic summit, global spectacle, unifying symbol in the midst of a political crisis… The reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Saturday, December 7, and Sunday, December 8, is an event with a multitude of meanings. Its scope is commensurate with the immense international emotion provoked by the fire on April 15, 2019.

Overwhelming, but with no one to blame, the disaster had all the makings of one of France’s notorious clashes, between state-church controversy, the quarrel between the old and the new, the search for scapegoats and a demonstration of administrative inertia. The risks were heightened by the fact that, as Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, the cathedral’s rector, told The World“everything about Notre-Dame is exciting, so everything is passionate”.

None of this prevented Emmanuel Macron’s imperious promise to “rebuild” Notre-Dame “within five years” from being kept. If the gush of millions of euros collected, from multinationals and celebrities as well as small donors, and the promise of worldwide visibility for the sponsoring firms constituted the first secret of this undeniable success, the determination displayed by the president, his ongoing personal commitment, and the setting of a deadline ensured that this titanic construction site, carried out at breakneck speed, would be completed on schedule.

Not an answer to the country’s ills

But the president’s words would have been in vain without the commitment and talent of the carpenters, roofers, engineers, restorers, stonemasons, stained glass artists and other tradespeople working under the aegis of a public establishment created for the occasion. It was all headed by General Jean-Louis Georgelin, and then, after his death, by his right-hand man, Philippe Jost.

Is this undeniable feat a “metaphor for the life of the nation” and an “antidote to despondency,” as Macron put it on November 29 when he visited the cathedral, which, with its blonde stone and restored stained-glass windows, regained its light? In reality, the rebirth of Notre-Dame, the fruit of both public emotion and the vertical practice of power, reflects above all the extraordinary political power of heritage as a refuge in a period of crisis. The identical reconstruction of Viollet-le-Duc’s spire and the uncertainty surrounding the redesign of the modern stained-glass windows confirmed the weight of conservatism, even for a president who claimed to bury the “old world.”

The sublime spectacle of a nearly 900-year-old cathedral being refurbished in record time is not in itself an answer to the country’s deep-seated ills. But, as its formidable great organ “wakes up” before some 40 heads of state and government, including Donald Trump, on his first foreign trip since his election, Notre-Dame offers France a masterly demonstration of strength too often forgotten or neglected: The soft power of a country which, just as during the Paris Olympics, is capable of drawing the world’s attention to itself, not only for its dramas, deficits and flareups, but also for its talents, organization and resilience.