The restored interior of Notre Dame Cathedral has been unveiled for the first time after more than five years of reconstruction work.
The rebuilt soaring ceilings and cream stonework erased sombre memories of a devastating fire in 2019.
With eight days to go for the Notre Dame’s grand reopening on December 7, images of a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron showed the inside of the famous cathedral as worshippers might have experienced it back in medieval times, its wide, open spaces filled with bright light on a crisp and sunny winter’s day.
Gaping holes left in the vaulted ceilings and charred piles of debris are now gone.
Mr Macron entered via the cathedral’s giant and intricately carved front doors and stared up at the ceilings in wonder.
The occasion is Mr Macron’s final visit to the construction site to see the restoration for himself before the famous monument’s reopening for worship on December 8.
The visit kicks off a series of events ushering in the reopening of the 12th-century Gothic masterpiece.
Mr Macron will return on December 7 to deliver an address and attend the consecration of the new altar during a solemn Mass the following day.
General view of the Cathedrale Notre-Dame of Paris as French President Emmanuel Macron visits the construction site to thanks the donors and workers who worked to rebuild the monument after the fire that ravaged the cathedral on 15 April 2019 in Paris, France, 29 November 2024
President Macron visiting the cathedral. The Paris Cathedral will be officially inaugurated after nearly six years of renovation work on 07 December 2024
The Notre Dame suffered a fure on April 15 2019
Mr Macron’s administration hailed the reconstruction as a symbol of national unity.
‘Even more beautiful than before, in the renewed radiance of the blonde stones and the colour of the chapels,’ Macron said in a statement released to media on the eve of the visit.
The ‘building site of the century’ was a ‘challenge that many considered insane’, the president added.
Notre Dame will welcome back visitors and worshippers over the December 7-8 weekend after a sometimes challenging restoration to return to its former glory the great Paris cathedral badly damaged by the April 19, 2019 fire.
Macron at the time set the ambitious goal to rebuild Notre Dame within five years and make it ‘even more beautiful’ than before, a target that the French authorities say has been met.
The French president is hoping the opening of Notre Dame will be a major feather in his cap amid the current political deadlock following early parliamentary elections this summer.
World leaders are expected to join but the guest list has yet to be unveiled.
Some 250 companies and hundreds of experts were mobilised for a restoration costing hundreds of millions of euros in what was dubbed the ‘building site of the century’.
French President Emmanuel Macron (C) abd his wife Brigitte Macron (L) visit Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris, on November 29, 2024
A view of the altar designed by French artist and designer Guillaume Bardet of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris
The Paris Cathedral will be officially inaugurated after nearly six years of renovation work on 07 December 2024
This photograph shows the inside of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris
Mr Macron’s administration hailed the reconstruction as a symbol of national unity
World leaders are expected to join the reopening next week but the guest list has yet to be unveiled
The restoration cost a total of nearly 700 million euros
Notre Dame’s restoration was financed from the 846 million euros donations that poured in after the fire
Aerial photograph shows scaffoldings on Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral a few days before its reopening
All 2,000 people who contributed to the work have been invited to Friday’s event, of whom at least 1,300 are expected to attend.
‘This final site visit is an opportunity to thank them in particular – from wood craftsmen to those of metal and stone, from scaffolders to roofers, from bell makers to art restorers, from gilders to masons and sculptors, from carpenters to organ builders, from architects, archaeologists, engineers and planners to logistical and administrative functions,’ Macron said ahead of the visit.
The restoration cost a total of nearly 700 million euros. It was financed from the 846 million euros in donations that poured in from 150 countries in an unprecedented surge of solidarity.
The 19th-century gothic spire has now been resurrected with an exact copy of the original, the stained windows have regained their colour, the walls shining after fire stains cleaned and a restored organ ready to thunder out again.
Unseen to visitors is a new mechanism to protect against any future fires, a discreet system of pipes ready to release millions of water droplets in case of a new disaster.
Notre Dame, which welcomed 12 million visitors in 2017, expects to receive an even higher figure of ’14 to 15 million’ after the reopening, according to the church authorities.
French ministers have also floated the idea of charging tourists an entrance fee to the site but the Paris diocese has said free admission was an important principle to maintain.
France is by its constitution a secular country with a strict division between church and state.
Debris seen inside the Notre Dame in 2019 following the fire
The next day, Sunday December 8, will see the first mass and consecration of the new altar.
Macron said in December 2023 he had invited Pope Francis to the reopening of the cathedral but the head of the Catholic church announced in September, to the surprise of some observers, that he would not be coming.
Instead, the pontiff is making a landmark visit during the subsequent weekend to the French island of Corsica.
The French Catholic church has in recent years been rocked by a succession of sexual abuse allegations against clerics, including most recently the monk known as Abbe Pierre who became a household name for providing aid to the destitute.
Over five years on, the investigation into what caused the fire is ongoing, with initial findings backing an accidental cause such as a short circuit, a welder’s torch or a cigarette.