Notre-Dame reopening to be held indoors due to weather

The ceremony for the grand reopening of France’s Notre-Dame Cathedral will be held entirely indoors due to an inclement weather forecast, the Elysée Palace and Paris diocese said on Friday, December 6.

Saturday’s reopening, which comes five years after the fire that devastated the famed Paris landmark, was moved inside after weather service Météo France forecast wind gusts of up to 80 kilometers per hour, “obliging us to reorganize the arrangements,” said President Emmanuel Macron’s office and the local diocese in a joint statement.

A long list of world leaders, royalty and celebrities are due to attend the gala event. Those include Britain’s Prince William, US president-elect Donald Trump and possibly US singer and fashion designer Pharrell Williams, who is widely rumoured to perform.

The ceremony was initially to feature a speech by Macron outside the cathedral before its doors were officially opened by the clergy. That was the subject of delicate negotiations between the diocese and his office, which wanted him to speak inside.

However, on top of the political storm, a literal storm – with winds forecast at up to 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour – caused officials to move the speech inside and pre-record the star-studded concert that had also been planned for outside.

Macron in an address to the nation on Thursday pointed to Notre Dame’s reconstruction as a source of motivation to find a way out of the political quagmire.

“It’s the proof that we’re able to do great things, that we can do the impossible … It’s the same thing we need to do for the nation,” he said.

As for the scheduled concert, “the artists due to perform [Saturday] are instead recording live tonight” outside the cathedral, with the recording to be retransmitted during the event, the statement said.