France’s Emmanuel Macron has praised workers for completing the “impossible” task of restoring Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris after a major fire engulfed the Gothic jewel in 2019.
On Friday, the world got its first glimpse of a stunning new Notre-Dame when Macron went on a television tour to mark the cathedral’s upcoming reopening.
Five and a half years after the devastating fire, Paris’s Gothic jewel has been saved, renovated and redecorated – and it will offer visitors a breathtaking visual treat.
In a speech to the craftsmen and women who worked on the renovation, Macron said: “The fire at Notre-Dame was a national wound, and you have been the cure through will, through work, through dedication.”
“I am so deeply grateful, France is so deeply grateful,” the president said during his speech, adding: “you brought back Notre Dame.”
Macron – accompanied by his wife Brigitte and Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich – kicked off a program of ceremonies that will culminate in an official “entry” into the cathedral on December 7 and the first Catholic Mass the day after.
Entering the renovated cathedral, Macron said it has now been “repaired, reinvented and rebuilt.”
“It’s sublime,” he said.
He was then shown highlights of the building’s €700 million (£582 million) renovation, including the massive roof structure that replaced the medieval frame destroyed by the fire.
At the end of his visit to Notre-Dame, Macron told workers that their recovery efforts had been indispensable [Reuters]
Earlier, the French president was given a tour of the newly renovated cathedral, together with Parisian Archbishop Laurent Ulrich and Parisian Mayor Anne Hidalgo. [Getty Images]
Before Macron’s visit, Notre Dame’s revamped interior had been kept a closely guarded secret – with only a few images released over the years marking the progress of the renovation work.
On Friday I had the opportunity to take a look inside, and what I saw was enough to convince me that it is a spectacular experience. There is a new, fresh face to this cathedral.
It is not just a renovation or rebuilding of the structure of the roof, it is also a cleaning up of dirt and grime in the interior since the last restoration in the 1850s.
On the evening of April 15, 2019, viewers around the world watched in amazement as live footage was broadcast of orange flames spreading across the roof of the cathedral, and then – at the height of the fire – of the 19th-century spire burning collapsed to the ground.
The cathedral – whose structure was already causing concern before the inferno – was undergoing external renovation at the time. Theories for the cause of the fire include a cigarette left by an employee or an electrical fault.
About 600 firefighters battled the flames for 15 hours.
No one was killed or injured by the fire.
At one point it was feared that the eight bells in the north tower were at risk of falling, which would have brought down the tower itself and possibly much of the cathedral walls.
Ultimately, the structure was preserved.
What was destroyed were the spire, the wooden roof beams (known as the “forest”) and the stone vaults over the center of the transept and part of the nave.
There was also a lot of damage from falling wood and masonry, and from water from fire hoses.
Fortunately, the list of what was saved was a much longer list – including all the stained glass windows, most of the sculptures and works of art, and the sacred relic known as the Crown of Thorns. The organ – the second largest in France – was badly damaged by dust and smoke, but could be repaired.
The cathedral’s clergy also celebrated certain ‘miraculés’ – miraculous survivors.
These include the 14th-century statue in the chancel known as the Virgin of the Pillar, which narrowly avoided being crushed by falling masonry.
Just four days before the fire, sixteen massive copper statues of the apostles and evangelists, which surrounded the spire, had been taken down for renovation.
After inspecting the destruction the next day, Macron made what seemed to many at the time a hasty promise: that Notre-Dame would reopen to visitors within five years.
A government agency was established by law to manage the work, and a call for funding brought an immediate response. A total of €846 million was raised, largely from large sponsors, but also from hundreds of thousands of small donors.
Responsibility for this task was entrusted to Jean-Louis Georgelin, a no-nonsense army general who shared Macron’s impatience with the committees and the ‘heritage’ establishment.
Georgelin is given universal credit for the undisputed success of the project, but he died in an accident in the Pyrenees in August 2023 and was replaced by Philippe Jost.
An estimated 2,000 masons, carpenters, restorers, roofers, foundry workers, art experts, sculptors and engineers worked on the project, giving a huge boost to French arts and crafts.
In many professions – such as stone carving – the number of apprenticeships has increased sharply as a result of the publicity.
“[The Notre Dame project] has been the equivalent of a World’s Fair, in that it has been a showcase for our craftsmanship. It is a beautiful showcase internationally,” says Pascal Payen-Appenzeller, whose association promotes traditional construction skills.
The first task of the project was to make the site safe and then dismantle the enormous tangle of metal scaffolding that had previously surrounded the spire, but had been melted by the fire and fused to the brickwork.
Since 2019, renovation efforts have been underway to restore the 850-year-old Gothic building [Getty Images]
A decision had to be made early on about the nature of the renovation: whether we would faithfully recreate the medieval building and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s 19th century neo-Gothic changes, or whether we would take the opportunity to building with a modern print.
A call for new designs yielded unusual ideas, including a glass roof, a green “eco roof”, a huge flame instead of a spire, and a spire topped with a vertical laser that shoots into the firmament.
Despite opposition from experts and the public, they were all abandoned and the reconstruction is essentially faithful to the original, albeit with some concessions to modern materials and safety requirements. For example, the roof trusses are now protected with sprinklers and partition walls.
The only remaining point of contention concerns Macron’s desire for a modern design for stained glass windows in six side chapels. Artists have submitted entries for a competition, but there is fierce opposition from many in the French art world.
Macron has tried to make the renovation of Notre-Dame a theme and a symbol.
He is closely involved in the project and has visited the cathedral several times.
At a time when its political fortunes are at an all-time low – following July’s devastating parliamentary elections – the reopening is a much-needed boost to morale.
Some said he stole the spotlight by staging Friday’s ceremony — officially marking the end of the project — a week before the formal reopening. It means that the first, long-awaited images of the interior will inevitably focus on him as well.
In response, Elysée officials point out that the cathedral – like all French religious buildings under a 1905 law – is owned by the state, with the Catholic Church as its “assigned user”; and that without Macron’s rapid mobilization the work would never have been completed so quickly.
‘What people will see [in the new Notre Dame] is the beauty and power of collective willpower – à la française,‘, said an insider from the Elysée.
