SARAH MEYSSONNIER / AFP
Visiting Notre-Dame de Paris on November 29, Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Jean-Louis Georgelin
POLITICS – At the time of thanks, it is difficult not to mention the “Mister Notre-Dame” who launched the reconstruction. For his last visit of the cathedral construction site a few days before its reopening to the public, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to General Jean-Louis Georgelin, appointed to head the project in 2019 but died before seeing the project completed.
At the end of 2019, a few months after the destructive fire, Emmanuel Macron chose General Jean-Louis Georgelin, former chief of staff of the armed forces, to take the helm of the public establishment created to pilot what promises to be the “construction site of the century”. But the 74-year-old soldier dies in the summer of 2023 after a fall while hiking.
“There was a strong personality, a leader and it was General Georgelin. And for all of us, from 2019 to 2023, he was the face and voice of the site. It is to him that I would like to dedicate this moment at your side because he should have been with us,” declared Emmanuel Macron, moved, standing in the middle of the nave. “ I think he would have been proud and happy. He would have greeted each of you by your first and last name as usual with that stentorian voice,” he continued.
The reopening of Notre-Dame, a “shock of hope”
Emmanuel Macron also spoke of the memory of Azzedine Hedna, scaffolder and “one of the key figures in the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris” according to the public establishment in charge of reconstruction. The 64-year-old man died in early November, shortly before reopening. In front of his former colleagues, Emmanuel Macron thanked the craftsman “who got along so well with the general” Georgelin.
The President of the Republic’s desire to rebuild Notre-Dame in just five years had aroused a wave of disbelief. But the challenge was finally metthanks to the hundreds of millions of euros in donations received after the disaster but above all thanks to the work of the many trades who worked. “Behind this simple objective (to rebuild in 5 years) there was an aggregation of all the wishes. And you did it. You have achieved what we thought was impossible”, underlined the head of state.
“The Notre-Dame blaze was a national wound and you were its remedy through will, through work, through commitment,” he added, presiding over a “shock of hope” during the reopening of Notre-Dame which will be “as strong as the fire” in April 2019. On December 7, the cathedral will reopen its doors to the public. Emmanuel Macron will speak again, but from the square this time in the name of respect for “principle of separation”.
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