PARIS, Dec 7 — “We can do it!” President Emmanuel Macron told France on April 16, 2019, the day after the fire that ravaged Notre Dame, as he set a target of five years to rebuild the great mediaeval edifice in the heart of Paris to its former glory.
At the re-opening ceremony on Saturday, Macron can boast that this target has been met, dispelling the doubts of many who argued that the goal was wildly ambitious.
Furthermore, he has scored a major diplomatic coup by attracting Donald Trump to the ceremony for his first foreign trip since his election victory. The US president-elect may hold talks in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is also attending.
Macron will hold meetings with Trump and Zelensky before the Notre Dame proceedings, the presidency said. It was unclear, however, whether the three would hold a joint meeting and no Trump-Zelensky meeting has been officially confirmed.
The opening will cap a historic year for Paris after the Olympic Games that were launched by a ground-breaking opening ceremony on the Seine river that attracted controversy and praise.
While Macron will seek some glory in the reopening of Notre Dame, it also comes just three days after parliament voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier, deepening a months-long political crisis.
With Barnier staying on as a caretaker until Macron finds a successor, the ceremony will take place without a permanent head of government.
The glow of the Olympics and Paralympics, which brought Parisians, the French and foreign visitors together over the summer, now appears a parenthesis in a bleak and turbulent year.
‘We can do the impossible’
But always defiant, 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.
Macron was originally due to launch the reopening in an address outside the cathedral before its doors were officially opened by the clergy.
However, on top of the political storm, a literal storm — with winds forecast at up to 80 kilometres per hour — caused officials to move the speech inside and pre-record the star-studded concert that had also been planned for outside.
The choreography had been the subject of intense negotiations with the Church: the Elysee had wanted a presidential speech inside Notre Dame from the start, but the idea caused debate within the Church and among defenders of France’s strictly secular system.
Macron, who will also attend the first mass open to the public on Sunday, had already spoken inside Notre Dame during a final inspection, allowing the world to discover its restored beauty on television.
It gave him a chance to reaffirm the success of meeting the five-year goal despite all those who said “that it would not be possible, that it was crazy, that it was arbitrary, that we were going to do it wrongly”.
“He put in place a framework that made it possible. It’s not abnormal if he tries to profit from it or rejoices in it,” said a government source asking not to be named.
‘Full level of glory’
Indeed, Macron has appeared to turn the reconstruction into a metaphor of his presidency, presenting it as a battle of boldness and ambition against the naysayers who predict failure.
In a typical Macronian assertion, he last week told the artisans who worked on the reconstruction: “You have shown the world that nothing resists audacity.”
For all the troubles at home, Macron will likely take solace from the presence of Trump as an example of his ability to blaze a trail on the international stage and show other European leaders it is possible to deal with the tycoon-turned-president.
Zelensky will attend, said a Ukrainian official, asking not to be named. A meeting with Trump, who once boasted he could end Russia’s war on Ukraine in 24 hours, is “possible”, added the source.
The outgoing administration of Joe Biden will be represented by his wife Jill. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen will not be present.
Trump posted on his Truth Social network that Macron had “done a wonderful job ensuring that Notre Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so. It will be a very special day for all!” — AFP
