“The head of state visited the Notre-Dame de Paris construction site this Friday, exactly one year before the cathedral is scheduled to reopen after being ravaged by a fire in 2019. Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday, December 8, that he is inviting Pope Francis to attend the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris on December 8, 2024. “I hope so, in any case we will invite him,” replied the head of state during an interview on France 2. Earlier, during his visit to the Notre-Dame de Paris construction site, Emmanuel Macron announced that contemporary stained glass windows would be created to bring the “mark of the 21st century” to the cathedral.
In a letter sent this week, Mgr Laurent Ulrich, the archbishop of Paris, confirmed his “wish” to see the state commission “a series of six stained glass windows for the south side chapels of the nave.” “I fully agree,” replied Emmanuel Macron. He also announced that the old stained glass windows, “which will be removed” and “which date from Viollet-le-Duc,” as well as the rooster that fell on April 15, 2019 in the collapse of the spire, will be placed in a museum of the work of Notre-Dame de Paris that will be created “in the premises of the Hôtel-Dieu,” nearby on the Île de la Cité.
The head of state also announced during his visit that a museum will be established at the Hôtel-Dieu near Notre-Dame to preserve old stained glass windows and the rooster from the fallen spire. Emmanuel Macron then visited the construction site to mark the one-year countdown to the reopening of Notre-Dame for religious and public use, planned for December 8, 2024. He spoke of “a moment that is both important and moving,” testifying to “the extraordinary progress” of “this project that seemed impossible.” On April 15, 2019, a spectacular fire had destroyed the cathedral, including the spire designed.
Before the disaster, it attracted an average of 12 million visitors each year. Emmanuel Macron symbolically gave the last blow to the inscription, in the wood of the spire, of the name of “his general,” Jean-Louis Georgelin, who he had initially charged with leading this immense project and who passed away last summer. This marks a significant step in the reconstruction of the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral, a process that has captured global attention.
