Notre Dame cathedral will reopen today, five years and eight months after it was nearly destroyed by fire. About 30 foreign heads of state and government will listen to President Emmanuel Macron’s speech in front of the gothic monument.
Pope Francis declined Macron’s invitation because, said Mgr Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, “The star of the reopening of Notre Dame de Paris is Notre Dame de Paris”. Francis “did not want to attract attention to himself on this occasion”.
US president-elect Donald Trump had no such compunction and announced on Truth Social that he would attend “the re-opening of the Magnificent and Historic Notre Dame Cathedral”. On the night of the fire, Trump suggested that France use “flying water tankers” to extinguish the blaze. The French pointed out that do so “could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral”.
Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, Chinese pianist Lang Lang, French-American cellist Yo Yo Ma and South African Soprano Pretty Yende are among the stars who will perform in a celebratory concert on Saturday. On Sunday morning, Archbishop Laurent Ulrich will bang his crozier on the cathedral’s shuttered doors, enter the pristine, sparkling sanctuary and perform the first public Mass since April 2019.
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In the immediate aftermath of the fire, Macron promised to rebuild the cathedral “more beautiful than before” within five years. He fulfilled his rash promise. Critics now accuse him of wanting to bask in the reflected glory of the restored monument.
The restoration of Notre Dame, like last summer’s Paris Olympics, was possible because Macron circumvented French bureaucracy. “Macron has been in power since 2017,” noted the right-wing commentator Pascal Praud. “If one can reproach him for anything, it’s for not giving a kick in the ant hill and turning France into a gigantic construction site like Notre Dame.”
[ Notre Dame: World gets first glimpse of restored interior following 2019 fireOpens in new window ]
During his seventh post-fire visit to the site at the end of November, Macron called the cathedral’s rebirth “a metaphor for the life of the nation”. He thanked the nearly 2,000 stonemasons, roofers, stained-glass artists, painters, electricians, rope technicians and other artisans, saying: “The inferno of Notre Dame was a national wound, and you have healed it.” The “jolt of hope” created by the cathedral’s reopening would, he predicted, equal the shock of its near destruction.
But if there is an appropriate metaphor for the life of the nation, it is closer to the night of the fire. The contrast between the beauty of the cathedral and the condition of France is stark, amid a fiscal crisis worse than that of Greece, Italy or Spain. Deficit spending and a colossal, €3.2 trillion debt have made a mockery of euro-zone guidelines. Annual interest on the country’s debt has reached €60 billion, equivalent to the defence budget.
The political crisis is equally grave. On Wednesday night, Michel Barnier became the shortest-serving prime minister of the Fifth Republic when his government fell after only three months in office. Only one other government has fallen to a no-confidence motion, in 1962. Macron cannot dissolve the National Assembly again until June 2025. That left him only two options, said Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally: to appoint a new government, which would risk falling in turn for the same reasons, or to resign.
So Macron will hobnob with foreign leaders at Notre Dame on Saturday, much as Louis XVI tinkered with his clock collection on the day the Bastille was taken. The far left and far right politicians who brought down Barnier’s government were really clamouring for Macron’s head. Philippe Olivier, an adviser to Le Pen, described Macron as “a fallen republican monarch who advances with his shirt open and a rope around his neck towards the next dissolution [of the National Assembly]”.
Winning an early presidential election could keep Le Pen out of prison, like Trump in the US. The verdict in her trial on charges of embezzling European Union funds will be delivered next March 31st. If guilty, Le Pen risks a fine, prison and ineligibility for public office for five years.
Macron dismissed calls for his resignation as “political science fiction”. His original sin is to have dissolved parliament last June 9th, in the wake of EU elections which were won by Le Pen’s National Rally. Since the July election, the far left and far right constitute the biggest blocks in an assembly where no one has a majority.
Macron compounded the damage by waiting two months to appoint Barnier while France revelled in the planetary show of the Paris Olympics. The far left, which led the July 7th poll, demanded the prime minister’s office for one of their own. Macron instead chose Barnier, a member of the conservative party Les Républicains, which came in last in the election. Barnier’s political legitimacy was contested from the outset, and he became the hostage of Le Pen, who could threaten a no-confidence vote at any moment.
France’s worst problem is disunity. The reconstruction of Notre Dame showed how much the French can achieve when they work together. Macron’s greatest failing has been his inability to persuade them to do so.