President Macron tours Notre Dame cathedral, five years after blaze

Today’s live coverage of French President Emmanuel Macron’s tour of the restored Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has ended. Read through the posts below to see how it all unfolded, and check out the best images from CNN’s photo gallery of the cathedral’s restoration.

The nave of the newly restored Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France, on November 29.

French President Emmanuel Macron concluded his tour of Notre Dame with an emotional speech, thanking all those involved in restoring the cathedral to its former glory.

Here’s a recap of how the tour unfolded:

The tour ended with Macron seeing the Grand Organ, before dozens of people involved in the restoration work got their first look inside the cathedral.

Speaking to those who toured the gallery, Macron said he was “infinitely grateful.”

“You did it. And it’s an immense source of pride for the entire nation. I’m infinitely grateful to you, France is infinitely grateful to you.”

This photograph shows the tabernacle designed by French artist and designer Guillaume Bardet, in the heart of Notre Dame cathedral.

This photograph shows a general view of interior of Notre Dame cathedral.

This photograph shows windows in the heart of Notre Dame cathedral.

This photograph shows the altar designed by French artist and designer Guillaume Bardet in Notre Dame cathedral.

Resurrecting Paris’s Notre Dame, one of the world’s most celebrated buildings, from the ravaging flames in 2019 came with a hefty price tag.

It was estimated to cost a whopping 700 million euros ($737 million), according to from Rebuilding Notre Dame de Paris, the public body headed by Philippe Jost, which was tasked with the restorations.

In total, a staggering 846 million euros ($891 million) was raised through donations from 340,000 donors in 150 countries. Jost has previously said that any donated money that isn’t spent on the reconstruction will likely be used to “benefit the cathedral” in other ways.

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a visit to Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France, on November 29.

French President Emmanuel Macron concluded his visit to Notre Dame with a lengthy address honoring the hundreds of artisans, carpenters and other tradespeople who helped restore the cathedral in just a bit more than five years.

The French leader, who choked up with emotion toward the end of his speech, profusely thanked the audience for helping him “keep this promise to rebuild Notre Dame in five years.”

Notre Dame’s formal reopening will take place on December 7 and the first public mass will be held the following day.

From inside Notre Dame, CNN’s Senior International Correspondent Melissa Bell saw the finished labors of the cathedral for the first time.

“As you walk in, what hits you is just how light and bright it is,” Bell said.

“It isn’t so much they’ve restored it to its glory of five years ago, but that they’ve restored it to its glory of many centuries ago.”

“It’s incredibly beautiful but it almost feels like a different cathedral,” Bell added. “You can see it for the first time.”

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a visit to the Notre Dame cathedral.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “very happy” to be among those who helped rebuild Notre Dame to wrap up his final visit to the cathedral before its formal reopening on December 7.

Macron’s office said it had also invited donors who had written to the president to express their sadness after the cathedral went up in flames.

Construction workers who rebuilt the Notre Dame cathedral wait inside during a visit by French president.

Outside the cathedral, dozens of artisans, scaffolders, roofers, sculptors, painters, engineers, technicians, fire safety officials and members of the public stand and cheer as President Emmanuel Macron wraps up his tour.

They’re now getting a tour of the new look Notre Dame before Macron speaks.

Many cheer and clap as they enter to see inside.

Pipes of the restored organ inside the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

To wrap up the tour, Macron is taking a look at the grand organ.

The organ is 12 meters wide, 10 meters tall and has over 8,000 pipes and 115 stops, while it didn’t catch fire it did get damaged by lead dust that was released by the blaze.

The Elysee said the stop is important as it is the “return of its voice.”

Speaking to Macron, Christian Lutz, an organologist and contractor for the organ restoration project, said the instrument reflected the best of the of French organ workmanship throughout history.

Lutz said the Grand Organ had pipes from the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and had become “a condensed summary of the whole history of the French organ.”

This post has been updated with additional information.

This photograph shows the altar designed by French artist and designer Guillaume Bardet in the heart of Notre Dame cathedral.

President Emmanuel Macron, First Lady Brigitte Macron and Philippe Jost — who is charged with overseeing the Rebuild Notre Dame project — have moved into the cathedral’s most sacred space – the Choir of Notre Dame, which features a bronze tabernacle on architect Viollet-le-Duc’s altar and the statues that make up the Vow of Louis XIII.

The choir is a place for religious worship in Notre Dame. According to the cathedral’s website, it is pointed towards Jerusalem, the place where Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified.

Incidentally, the sculptures had only been restored four months before the blaze in 2019. In the aftermath, the statues had to be carefully steam-cleaned and restored from fire damage – a process that took two and a half months. But behind those sculptures, the Choir’s Glorious Cross stood tall, undamaged by the fire in the church.

According to the Elysee, the Cross is now viewed as a symbol of resistance.

French President Emmanuel Macron visits the restored interiors of Notre Dame cathedral.

We’re onto the last stage of the tour of walkways, taking in the southern ambulatory, which is one of several spaces where people can move around the choir, observe the painted chapel walls and be in pensive thought.

The renovation: This space had to be decontaminated and thoroughly cleaned due to the presence of lead dust released during the fire. After being thoroughly cleaned, the creamy colors of the limestone walls have been revealed once more.

Ariel Weil, the mayor of central Paris – which includes the 1st through 4th arrondissements – told CNN’s Anna Coren that the Notre Dame cathedral is “almost brand new.”

“For the first time, it’s been entirely cleaned up,” Weil said. “It’s amazing.”

During the interview, Weil recounted what it was like the night Notre Dame went up in flames:

Weil described entering the refinished church as almost “disturbing looking” because what was once a somber, dark interior of a cavernous gothic cathedral now shines brightly.

Weil said that once the church reopens to the public, the city expects 14 to 15 million people to visit each year.

“I’m sure that people are going to flock massively to the site,” he added.

The south rose window, offered as a gift by King Louis IX, has been restored to its full glory.

It’s not the first time it’s been rebuilt, had to be reconstructed in the 18th and 19th centuries too.

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Notre Dame's restored south rose window

00:47 - Source: CNN

President Emmanuel Macron meets with Marie Parant, who restored wall paintings in the St Marcel's chapel at the Notre Dame cathedral.

President Emmanuel Macron is meeting with Marie Parant, who restored wall paintings in the St Marcel’s chapel at Notre Dame Cathedral.

All the artwork in Notre Dame was restored at once — a first in the building’s history.

Twenty-nine chapels surround the interior of the cathedral. They were not part of the original plans for the space but added in the 13th century, with each following a pattern: a starry blue ceiling, two walls decorated with consistent motifs, and one wall featuring a historical scene.

Macron’s next stop is one of those chapels named for Saint Marcel.

The paintings of the chapel were covered in decades worth of dirt, but according to Philippe Jost, who has overseen the construction effort, have now been resurrected to their original colors.

Jost paid tribute to Parant, who worked with dozens of people to clean the artworks and restore them to their original colors.

President Emmanuel Macron has now toured a mural in the north enclosure of the choir, restored by Maud Pouliot.

The chancel screen is on a rood screen — an ornate partition that separated the nave from the choir. It was badly damaged, but restoration started on the screen in September 2022 and was completed by the summer of 2023.

While it was being restored by Pouliot, ancient engravings were discovered which depicted part of the scene of the Last Supper, an important story in Christian doctrine.

The Elysee said the pieces were cleaned with a gel then reattached with a filler from a syringe. Then, the missing pigments are reapplied.

Julien Le Bras, the CEO of one of the firms charged with rebuilding Notre Dame’s spire and its base, told French President Emmanuel Macron that he and his fellow artisans worked to restore one of the most iconic pieces of the cathedral.

The spire’s collapse was a particularly dramatic and tragic moment during the 2019 fire that nearly destroyed the cathedral.

Lebras explained that his company partnered with several competitors from across France, putting aside their “small rivalry” to rebuild one of Notre Dame’s most iconic architectural elements.

“We put all the patience, all the energy, all the heart we had into trying to beautify this work,” Lebras said.

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Macron views framework of Notre Dame roof where new spire rests

01:07 - Source: CNN

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron visit the spire of Notre-Dame cathedral.

President Emmanuel Macron’s next stop on his tour of the cathedral, at the framework of the transept crossing, is significant as it’s where the new spire rests.

It was one of the most emotional and recognizable moments of the 2019 fire that engulfed Notre Dame: When the spire tumbled into the church as bright orange flames climbed out of the building.

The oak frameworks and lead roofing of the nave, choir and transept of Notre Dame were reconstructed to look exactly like the originals, according to Rebuild Notre Dame.

The rebuilding of these areas provided the base on which the iconic spire could be rebuilt.

Some background: First designed by architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century, the spire was one of the key architectural elements of the church. It was 96 metres tall and collapsed in the 2019 fire. Its replacement was installed and released of scaffolding early last year.

The new design of the roof above the transept crossing also has a new built-in feature: being fireproof.

Among those strategies include twostop fire trusses which separate different areas of the roof to stop fire from spreading, and a security hub where all important information is conveyed, the Elysee said.

If you want to see it for yourself, check out this video of the first interior shots in the cathedral:

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Notre Dame interior shots

01:02 - Source: CNN

An image made available by Gigarama.ru on Wednesday April 17, 2019 shows an aerial shot of the fire damage to Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Tuesday April 16.

Described by the Elysee as “one of the most symbolic” moments of the visit, the medieval roof structure above the choir is a key element of Notre Dame’s Gothic architecture.

Before the fire, the roof was nicknamed “the forest” because it was made with oak trees from across France, and due to the density of the vaults. It was the epicenter of the blaze before it collapsed, according to the French government.

Lumbermen work on the felling of oak trees selected to be use in the reconstruction of Notre-Dame cathedral the Villefermoy forest, near Echouboulains, on March 15, 2021.

To ensure the integrity of the cathedral’s reconstruction, carpenters in charge of the choir and nave’s framework traveled with foresters to source 1,200 oak trees from several forests around the nation for the roof structure over the nave and choir.

Once the trees arrived at the carpenters, they recreated the 13th century methods to ensure the structural integrity of the beams once more. The wood was worked just as it had been in the Middle ages — while still green, shaped by hand-axe before being left to dry.

French President Emmanuel Macron, his wife Brigitte Macron and Paris' archbishop Laurent Ulrich visit Notre Dame cathedral and stop in front of the Virgin of Paris statue.

President Emmanuel Macron has stopped to look at the statue of the Virgin of Paris.

The statue, also known as the “Virgin of the Pillar” was first sculpted in the 14th century and arrived at Notre Dame in the 19th century.

After the fire, a stark image of the statue stood, resolute as burnt wood and collapsed stones surrounded it.

This photograph shows the newly restored South Rose window of Notre Dame cathedral.

The intersection of Notre Dame forms a Latin cross, according to the cathedral’s official website. The transept is the horizontal arm of that cross and is the third stop on Macron’s tour of the reconstructed site today.

There, Macron is meeting with Henry de Reviers, a director of restoration company Lefevre, which was involved in the restoration of the cathedral, along with other companies.

Liturgies take place in the transept, and notably the north rose window still has original 13th-century stained glass.

But, it was an area that was badly damaged in the 2019 inferno. According to Philippe Jost, charged with overseeing the Rebuild Notre Dame project, the destruction of the vault in the transept was one of the “most regrettable” parts of the damage caused. The spire had been directly above that vault, but came crashing into the cathedral when it collapsed.

The great vault at the crossing is the tallest in the cathedral, nearly 35 meters high and on it rests the spire.

Before reconstructing the great vault, France’s National Institute for Preventative Archaeological Research conducted a survey to ensure no artifacts would be damaged. In doing so, they found tombs in the cathedral, according to the Elysee.