Notre Dame to reopen 5 years after fire with Trump in attendance: What to know
PARIS - Notre Dame Cathedral will finally reopen to the public this weekend in Paris after a five-year restoration following a devastating fire. President-elect Donald Trump will be in attendance, his first foreign trip since winning the U.S. presidential election.
Trump was president in 2019 when a massive fire engulfed Notre Dame, collapsing its spire and threatening to destroy one of the world’s greatest architectural treasures.
The famous cathedral took 182 years to build between the 12th and 14th centuries. It stands as a jewel of Gothic architecture, the heart of France, and a tourist mecca – immortalized by Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
FILE - A man stands in front of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral a few days before its reopening, in Paris on Dec. 2, 2024. (Photo by BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP via Getty Images)
Notre Dame’s reopening will be an elaborate, multi-day celebration, beginning on Saturday. Here’s what to know:
Trump to attend Notre Dame reopening
The cathedral is set to officially reopen on Saturday after more than five years of reconstruction following a devastating fire on April 15, 2019, that engulfed and nearly destroyed the soaring Paris landmark.
The ceremonies being held Saturday and Sunday will be high-security affairs, with about 50 heads of state and government expected to attend. Trump on Monday night announced that he'd be among them.
"It is an honor to announce that I will be traveling to Paris, France, on Saturday to attend the re-opening of the Magnificent and Historic Notre Dame Cathedral, which has been fully restored after a devastating fire five years ago," Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.
"President Emmanuel Macron has done a wonderful job ensuring that Notre Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so. It will be a very special day for all!"
The trip will be Trump's first abroad since he won November's presidential election. He traveled to Scotland and Ireland in May 2023, as a candidate, to visit his local golf courses.
Notre Dame reopening celebration plans
On Saturday afternoon, Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich will preside at a reopening service, banging on Notre Dame’s shuttered doors with his staff to reopen them, according to the cathedral's website.
The archbishop will also symbolically reawaken Notre Dame’s thunderous grand organ. The fire that melted the cathedral’s lead roofing coated the huge instrument in toxic dust. Its 8,000 pipes have been painstakingly disassembled, cleaned and retuned.
French President Emmanuel Macron will attend and address the VIP guests.
After the service, opera singers Pretty Yende, from South Africa, and Julie Fuchs, from France; Chinese pianist Lang Lang; Paris-born cellist Yo-Yo Ma; Benin-born singer Angelique Kidjo; Lebanese singer Hiba Tawaji and others will perform at a concert Saturday evening, according to the show’s broadcaster, France Télévisions.
On Sunday morning, the Paris archbishop will lead an inaugural Mass and consecration of the new altar.
Nearly 170 bishops from France and other countries will attend the celebration, along with priests from all 106 parishes in the Paris diocese. The Mass will be followed by a "fraternal buffet" for the needy.
Ile de la Cité, where the cathedral sits in the middle of the River Seine, will be blocked off to tourists for the events. A public viewing area with room for 40,000 spectators will be set up along the Seine’s southern bank.
Notre Dame cathedral fire: What to know
On April 15, 2019, a structure fire broke out on the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral while it was undergoing renovations. Once the fire was extinguished, the cathedral’s spire collapsed and most of the wooden roof and upper walls were severely damaged.
Locals and tourists watched aghast from the streets as flames and smoke shot from the monument, home to relics, stained-glass and other incalculable worlds of art, while images online shocked many around the world.
Investigators suspected the fire was caused by a cigarette or electrical issue, but no definitive cause was found.
The cathedral attracted millions of worshippers and visitors annually before the 2019 fire forced its closure and turned the monument in the heart of Paris into a no-go zone except for artisans, architects and others mobilized for the reconstruction.
Macron pledged to rebuild Notre Dame that he called "a part of us" at the time and appealed for help to do so. Restoration work went on for several years, with French authorities just last week sharing new footage of the restored catherdral.
In France, Notre Dame’s importance goes beyond its architecture and history — it’s literally the point from which all roads in the country begin.
In front of the cathedral, embedded in the cobblestones, lies a modest bronze-and-stone slab with the inscription "point zéro des routes de France," meaning "starting point of the roads of France.'' The plaque marks the starting point for measuring distances between Paris and other cities across the country.
Notre Dame fire highlights lead dust danger
The 2019 fire that almost destroyed Notre Dame also revealed a serious health risk. When the flames melted the roof, tons of toxic lead dust were released into the air and settled across Paris.
As a result, authorities discovered there were no rules to measure the danger of outdoor lead dust. This wasn’t just a Paris issue — major cities like London and Rome, and even the World Health Organization, don’t have guidelines for outdoor lead pollution.
The Notre Dame fire highlighted a hidden problem, forcing officials to take a closer look at their safety standards. It took four months for the city to complete a deep-clean operation of the sidewalks even as tourists, residents and merchants walked streets around the cathedral daily.