By Kate Scanlon, Gina Christian
WASHINGTON (OSV News) — President-elect Donald Trump will attend the upcoming reopening ceremony for Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, he said Dec. 2. The trip will mark his first foreign trip since his election to a second term.
The 800-year-old cathedral is set to reopen Dec. 7-8, more than five years after a devastating fire in 2019. The weekend ceremonies mark the completion of the yearslong restoration process and will feature dozens of heads of state.
“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 said in a statement.
Trump added President Emmanuel Macron of France “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!”
Trump and Macron have had an at times tumultuous relationship, sometimes working together closely and other times sharply criticizing one another.
In November remarks at the site, Macron said the fire was a tragic event that “affected the people of France” and Catholics around the globe. He thanked the 600-some Parisian firefighters who had “saved this cathedral” after a 15-hour battle in which there were no deaths or injuries.
Macron — who was accompanied on his Nov. 29 tour of the cathedral by his wife Brigitte Macron, Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo — also hailed the more than 1,000 artisans who had painstakingly restored the 12th-century cathedral’s stone, wood and art fixtures.
Notre Dame’s iconic spire, which collapsed at the peak of the April 15, 2019, blaze, was reconstructed with some 1,000 historic French oak trees, and was unveiled in February as scaffolding was removed. In December 2023, Archbishop Ulrich placed the relic of the Crown of Thorns, as well as relics of St. Denis and St. Genevieve, inside the restored golden rooster — a symbol of Christ’s resurrection, and reimagined as a phoenix — that tops the spire.
Also renovated was the cathedral’s grand organ, the largest in France with some 8,000 pipes and 109 stops. The instrument had been coated by toxic lead dust during the blaze.
Trump was president of the United States when the fire took place. He said in a Twitter (now X) post at the time, “So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!”
Shortly thereafter, French authorities explained they did not use “water-bombing aircrafts” out of concern the impact of such water drops could collapse the cathedral entirely.
Michel Picaud, president of the Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris, a nonprofit organization launched in 2017 dedicated to raising restoration funds for the cathedral, previously told OSV News, “There is a very strong attachment — and even love — of American people for Notre Dame.”
Its age and history, the lengthy alliance between the U.S. and France, cultural references such as books and musicals have all played a role in that relationship and the popular imagination, Picaud said.
