France Unveils a Renovated Notre-Dame, 5 Years After a Ruinous Fire

Mr. Trump’s first foreign trip since winning the presidential election in November provided a diplomatic undercurrent to the celebration of the cathedral,renovated since a 2019 fire. Before the ceremony, Mr. Trump arrived at Mr. Macron’s office at Élysée Palace, where the men shook hands and briefly hugged. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, also met with Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump there, where he lobbied for Mr. Trump’s support in the war against Russia.

Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump last met in late September, when Mr. Trump was still a presidential candidate. Mr. Zelensky stood beside Mr. Trump silently that day as Mr. Trump told reporters that both sides wanted the Russia-Ukraine war to end, including its instigator, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Mr. Trump was among the last major leaders to arrive at Notre-Dame on Saturday, and when he did, he was greeted with muted applause. Mr. Zelensky had received a louder ovation.

What came next was more akin to a scene on the campaign trail: Mr. Trump walked down a rope line of world leaders, shaking their hands one by one, as the largely seated audience behind them watched. Some clutched their phones to record the moment. Afterward, Mr. Trump took a seat by himself, until the Macrons sat on either side of him.

Mr. Macron was eager to use the world stage to celebrate his government’s success in restoring the cathedral with a speed that critics had not expected. But the reopening arrived at an untimely moment for the government: Michel Barnier, France’s prime minister, lost a no-confidence vote on Wednesday, leaving it rudderless. Mr. Barnier was forced to resign, while Mr. Macron must pick his successor.

Mr. Trump also met on Saturday with Prince William in Paris.

Many nations are bracing for a second Trump administration, and some foreign leaders have already made clear their interest in working with the president-elect. Mr. Trump spoke with Mr. Macron by phone at least once as he planned his trip to Paris.

In the past, Mr. Macron has showered Mr. Trump with flattery, and he invited him to attend Bastille Day ceremonies in 2017. But their relationship deteriorated in 2018 when Mr. Macron supported the idea of a true European military defense, one that could counter rivals like Russia but also the United States.

A collective gasp arose from the crowd as the spire fell, awful proof that what I was seeing was real.

The daylight lingered long enough to allow, cruelly, a full view of the quickly blackening hulk and the flames pouring out of the roof. For hours it seemed as though Notre-Dame might go down for good.

Back in The New York Times bureau we waited anxiously for television bulletins from the fire chief, Jean-Claude Gallet, and President Emmanuel Macron.

There was something of the apocalypse that night.

The all-clear was sounded late. Notre-Dame was saved. But the days and weeks that followed the fire confirmed what you only dimly sensed that night. Something essential in the life of the city had been snuffed out. It had been so much a part of daily living, going on nine centuries, that you noticed it only when it appeared to be, suddenly, ephemeral.

This or that revelation emerged in the following weeks about lapses, precautions not taken, safety measures that were antiquated. They seemed beside the point. Notre-Dame was now, if not gone, a sad ghost of itself.

I avoided looking at it when I was in the vicinity. It had been a kind of anchor all my life, since I first moved to Paris at the age of 3. It was unbearable to see it now as merely a blackened shell covered in scaffolding.

Nobody quite believed Mr. Macron when he promised to bring the cathedral back in five years. It seemed one of the grandiose promises he is good at making, and not so much at fulfilling.

But the skeptics like myself were proved wrong. The gleaming facade of the cathedral that Mr. Macron reopened Saturday is stunning. Witnessing this feat carried its own tinge of loss, though. The shiny new facade resembles the foreboding soot-covered exterior I remembered from my childhood — Paris still wore its pre-World War II grime into the 1960s — but only just.

At a time of dire political trouble for him, Mr. Macron has pulled off a feat of distinctly French ingenuity, with thousands of artisans contributing with devotion and skill.

The Frenchness of the moment of the cathedral’s reopening was emphasized Saturday in other less fortunate ways. The heavy police presence, and the officious minders posted at key intersections around the cathedral, all so characteristic of French public life, snuffed out any hope that the “official” reopening might be a joyous public celebration, for the people. The gloomy weather didn’t help. And the sparse crowds along the river banks seemed be largely made up of tourists.

Still, my most distinctive recollection of the terrible night of the fire is the ecumenical, multiethnic, multiracial and above all Parisian nature of the crowd of spontaneous mourners who gathered in the city hall plaza. Christian, Muslim, Jew — all of those I interviewed were in shock.

This was a lesson in what it means to be Parisian. You live, intimately, with beauty — buildings that, like Notre-Dame, take away the visitors’ breath yet are not taken for granted by Parisians. They are integrated into daily existence. It is only when they are excised, even partially, that the Parisian becomes fully aware of how reliant she or he has become on them.

Saturday evening I strolled along the cathedral’s edges in the twilight, kept mostly at bay by the minders, all of them consumed by the importance of the grandees who were about to descend.

The few Parisians I encountered expressed pride at the reconstruction. But they also shuddered at memories of the raging blaze. “People had the impression that a civilization was crumbling,” said Luc Sirop, a bookseller along the quai.

“I was shocked, really hurt, seeing all that smoke,” recalled Audrey Bonn, a 21-year-old student who was attending a nearby school at the time. “But yes, I’m very, very impressed by this reconstruction,” she said. “It really is a moment of pride.”

With Philippe Jost, the head of the reconstruction task force, leading us one afternoon, we squeezed through a small gap in the fencing onto the forecourt of the cathedral, where we were handed hard hats and shoe protectors. After stern instructions not to take pictures, we were led inside.

Over the course of a 50-minute tour, we saw the thousands of metal tubes of the cathedral’s great organ above us; the delicately sculpted choir enclosure; and the side chapels painted in vivid tones of powder blue, crimson and green intertwined with gold.

We marveled at the new reliquary for the crown of thorns, one of Notre-Dame’s most precious and venerated relics. The crown, which wasn’t there yet, will be placed at the center of a halo of nearly 400 translucent glass tiles, set in gilded cedar wood that sits on a heavy slab of marble.

We gazed at the copper rooster that used to sit atop the spire — and that was miraculously found after the fire. It was on display, still slightly bent and darkened, but will later be placed in a museum.

A new gilded rooster, designed by the chief architect, Philippe Villeneuve, now gazes across Paris from 300 feet above. Inside are religious relics and a scroll naming all of the workers who participated in the restoration.

One of my colleagues said it was remarkable to see the old cathedral with such a lovely spit shine, particularly because the decay of Gothic architecture has, in recent centuries, been a big part of its charm. The writer Rose Macaulay memorably referred to this fascination with crumbling Gothic buildings as “ruin lust.”

Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, as Mr. Jost rattled off how France had managed the five-year reconstruction project: a clear objective, an outpour of donations, a widely shared determination to succeed and a gathering of unique skills.

There were no visible scars from the fire, no signs, even faint, of when molten lead and charred beams fell through three gaping holes in the stone ceiling.

“We ran a marathon on the rhythm of a sprint,” Rémi Fromont, one of the lead architects at Notre-Dame, told us.

“It was passion that kept us going under pressure,” he added.

The cathedral was rebuilt almost exclusively as it was — same oak attic, same intricate spire, same lead roofing.

But Notre-Dame did not feel exactly the same.

The thousands of square feet of limestone were dazzling, cleaned not just from fire damage, but also of centuries of accumulated muck. A new, automated and adjustable lighting system adds brightness, with over 1,500 projectors that can shift intensity and color. Chandeliers from the 19th century now have LED candles.

It was as though the high-powered vacuums and strip-away latex coatings used by restorers had peeled away not just dirt, but some of the cathedral’s mystery, too.

Before the fire, darkened walls and shadowy recesses marked the passing of time. The building felt, well, old.

But now random sounds — the low drone of a trumpet as musicians rehearsed for Saturday’s ceremonies, the hurried squeaking of shoes — created a feeling of hushed anticipation, like being backstage before a show.

The cathedral was stirring to life.

Inside, votive candles had been placed next to credit card terminals for donations. Workers were affixing maps to guide visitors. Staff were being trained on new computers at the welcome desks.

A 17th-century statue of the Virgin Mary, moved closer to the entrance to greet visitors, gazed toward the front doors.

This week, his government fell and his handpicked prime minister was forced to resign. On Thursday, a defiant Mr. Macron said he would not step down, and would name a new prime minister in days. And he sought to burnish his statesman’s credentials by hosting a joint meeting on Saturday between President-elect Donald J. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine before the reopening ceremony.

But domestic crisis remains. The path to passing a budget — and taking the steps needed to address France’s ballooning deficit — is far from assured in a fractious National Assembly that includes powerful far-left and far-right blocs.

If France goes into the new year without a budget, it is unlikely to face a U.S.-style government shutdown. But investors are already selling off French stocks and bonds, raising the country’s borrowing costs.

The trouble began brewing in the summer, when Mr. Macron, a centrist, called for a snap election after European parliamentary elections in which the far-right National Rally scored big gains. That snap election was also disastrous for Mr. Macron’s party and its allies, as a leftist coalition that had united against the National Rally won the most seats. But Mr. Macron chose as prime minister Michel Barnier, a figure from the traditional centrist right, infuriating the leftists.

Mr. Barnier tried unsuccessfully to navigate the two extremes in the legislature to arrive at a budget deal. His proposal, including a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, landed with a thud, and he stepped down after losing a no-confidence vote on Wednesday.

As the drama has played out, Mr. Macron has found himself increasingly irrelevant in French public life. The Notre-Dame project is one exception. On a recent tour of the freshened-up cathedral, Mr. Macron, who is expected to speak before the reopening ceremony on Saturday, called the restoration effort “the most beautiful construction project of the century.”

But he and others have much work to do to restore stability to French politics.

While the bulk of the funding for the rebuilding effort came from big companies and foundations, a vast crowd of people contributed as well. In all, more than 840 million euros, or just over $880 million, from about 340,000 donors has poured in since the fire.

Most of that money has been used already, and about $150 million will be used to continue work on the cathedral’s exterior, including the sacristy and the flying buttresses, which could take another three years.

“At the time of the fire, it was not in great shape,” Philippe Jost, the head of the cathedral’s reconstruction task force, said recently. “You’ll have to get used to seeing the cathedral with scaffolding.”

After the French, Americans were the second-largest donors to the restoration effort, giving an estimated $62 million to the cause, according to Michel Picaud, president of Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris, a nonprofit that helped lead the international fund-raising effort. Mr. Picaud said some 45,000 American donors gave to his charity alone, with many other Americans giving to similar groups.

That largess is a testament to the enduring hold that France continues to have on American hearts. Some people contributed a few dollars, while some U.S.-based organizations gave vast sums, including the New York-based Starr Foundation and the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation of West Palm Beach, Fla., which donated $10 million each, Mr. Picaud said.

While it was not immediately clear what was said in the meeting, Mr. Zelensky was expected to press Ukraine’s case to Mr. Trump, amid concerns that his pledge to end the war quickly could leave Kyiv sacrificing substantial territory to Russia and lacking the security guarantees needed to deter future aggression.

Mr. Zelensky said afterward that it had been a “productive meeting” and he thanked Mr. Trump for his determination and Mr. Macron for organizing the encounter.

“We talked about our people, the situation on the battlefield and a just peace for Ukraine. We all want to end this war as quickly and fairly as possible,” the Ukrainian leader said in a statement, adding that they had “agreed to continue working together.”

The meeting appeared to be part of a broader diplomatic push by Ukraine to engage with Mr. Trump’s incoming administration and influence its plans to end to the war with Russia in a way that aligns as much as possible with Kyiv’s interests. Earlier this week, a delegation of senior Ukrainian officials traveled to the United States to meet with several of Mr. Trump’s key appointees.

“What is happening now is just the first act of a prelude to the negotiations to come,” Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst, wrote in a post on Facebook about the Ukrainian delegation’s visit to the United States.

Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky were slated to attend the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, but it remained uncertain until the last moment whether they would meet. They eventually spoke at the Élysée Palace, in what appeared to be a carefully choreographed entrance.

Mr. Macron greeted Mr. Trump at the Élysée Palace at 4:45 p.m. local time. Around 45 minutes later, Mr. Zelensky’s car pulled into the palace courtyard. The Ukrainian president stepped out, ascended the red-carpeted stairs, and entered the 18th-century building to join the French and American leaders.

They posed for pictures ahead of the trilateral meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes. “United States, Ukraine, and France. Together on this historic day. Gathered for Notre-Dame. Let us continue our joint efforts for peace and security,” Mr. Macron wrote in a social media post which included a picture of them talking under the gilded halls of the Élysée Palace.

Then the three leaders shook hands at they exited the palace, heading to the reopening ceremony of Notre-Dame Cathedral.

The event had been seen by Ukraine as a chance to press its case to the dozens of world leaders in attendance. Mr. Zelensky said he had met with Karl Nehammer, the Chancellor of Austria, and Salome Zourabichvili, the president of Georgia.

Sounding out Mr. Trump on his plans to end the war has been a top priority for Ukraine. These plans have so far been unclear, but officials in Kyiv are concerned that Mr. Trump’s vague pledge to end the war in 24 hours could result in Russia keeping the territory it has captured and ignoring Ukraine’s demand to join NATO as a security guarantee to prevent further attacks.

Ukraine’s outreach to Mr. Trump’s team has coincided with an apparent shift in Kyiv’s public stance on peace talks. After years of vowing not to cede territory to Russia, Mr. Zelensky has recently suggested he would consider doing so as a way to end the war, in return for NATO membership. Ukraine, he added, would then seek to regain its occupied territory through negotiations.

The change in position has been seen as a way for Ukraine to show Mr. Trump that it is ready to make concessions as part of negotiations. By contrast, Ukraine officials have insisted that Russia didn’t want to engage in negotiations, especially as its troops are steadily gaining ground on the battlefield.

Before Saturday’s meeting, Mr. Zelensky had already spoken with Mr. Trump three times this year: in a phone call over the summer, during a meeting in New York in September and in another call shortly after Mr. Trump’s election last month.

In an interview with Sky News last week, Mr. Zelensky said he wanted to work with Mr. Trump “directly” and was open to his proposals. “I want to share with him ideas, and I want to hear from his ideas,” he said.

On April 15, 2019, when the blaze erupted, thousands of onlookers gathered along the banks of the Seine to witness the spectacle of flames leaping from the cathedral’s wooden roof — its spire glowing red, then turning into a virtual cinder. Inside the cathedral, firefighters tried to rescue artworks.

When the flames were finally extinguished, Notre-Dame’s limestone exterior was left scorched but also drenched by tens of thousands of gallons of water from firefighters. It was coated with ash and lead dust.

During the restoration effort, workers had to deep clean the limestone as well as paintings and statues from the exterior to remove the ash and lead, as well as centuries of accumulated grime.

Exterior renovations will continue for several more years. About $150 million that remains from donations will be used to restore sections including the sacristy and the flying buttresses, which were worn out well before the fire.