President-elect Donald Trump will join First Lady Jill Biden, the UK’s Prince William and a roll-call of other world leaders Saturday for the official reopening ceremony of Paris’s great Notre Dame Cathedral.
For Trump, who visited the UK on a visit hosted by the late Queen Elizabeth during his first tenure as president, this will be his first meeting with a British royal since his re-election. Jill Biden will also be present in Paris.
The Times of London reports that the ceremony will see Paris’s Catholic archbishop Laurent Ulrich lead more than 1,500 guests in a service, beginning when he bangs on the cathedrals’s great doors with a staff created from pieces of wood from the cathedral roof, which collapsed in a blaze in April 2019.
It adds that Ulrich will then address the great organ – not been heard in public since the fire destroyed its nearly 8,000 pipes.
The project for refurbishment has cost a reported €700 million. The French president, beleaguered by a political storm which saw the resignation this week of his prime minister Michel Barnier, toured the rebuilt cathedral this week and praised the tireless efforts of the many craftspeople involved – up to 2,000 skilled workers over five years.
No reason has been confirmed for the blaze, which saw the roof collapse and soot fall onto priceless statues beneath.
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