Sarah Kuta

Daily Correspondent

Five years ago, the world watched in horror as smoke rose from the top of France’s famous Notre Dame Cathedral. Firefighters rushed to the historic church on the evening of April 15, 2019 and worked through the night to battle the fire. They were able to save most of the structure, but Notre Dame’s wooden roof and iconic spire collapsed.

After extensive restoration and renovation work, Notre-Dame is finally ready to reopen its doors.

The church officially opens to the public on December 8th. But French President Emmanuel Macron has now given a glimpse of the newly rebuilt cathedral.

On November 29, Macron took part in a televised tour of Notre-Dame led by Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect of France’s national monuments New York Times‘Aurelien Breeden. Photojournalists were also allowed to take part in the tour and their images show the dazzling new interior of the cathedral.

Speaking to a group of more than 1,000 craftsmen who worked on the project, Macron expressed his gratitude and appreciation for their painstaking efforts, Reuters’ Elizabeth Pineau and Michaela Cabrera report. He also thanked the firefighters who saved the burning building and the donors who helped raise more than $800 million to fund the restoration.

“The fire at Notre Dame was a national wound, and you were the cure,” he said, the newspaper reported Guardianis Philip Oltermann.

He added: “The shock of reopening will be as big as that of the fire, but it will be a shock of hope.”

The exterior is still a work in progress, with cranes and scaffolding surrounding the landmark in the fourth arrondissement of the French capital. But inside, the cathedral is bright and clean, with no trace of the devastating disaster that left it in ruins.

After the fire, emergency services cleared the charred piles of rubble that had fallen into the nave and near the altar. Next, they used electric vacuum cleaners to remove toxic lead dust from the melted roof.

They then sprayed a thin layer of latex cleaning paste onto the interior walls and columns. A few days later, they peeled off the latex, removing decades of accumulated dust and dirt. They also used cleaning gels to brighten painted walls.

Meanwhile, carpenters, like their medieval predecessors, hand-carved oak beams to rebuild the roof and spire. Hundreds of century-old oak trees were felled for reconstruction.

Craftsmen and craftsmen also repaired holes in the ceiling, installed new brickwork, restored 17th-century oil paintings, cleaned smoke-damaged stained glass windows, and renovated the large organ. Experts restored the eight historic bells in the cathedral’s north tower and installed three new bells – including one rung by gold medalists during the Summer Olympics in Paris.

“It feels like it was built yesterday, like it was just born, even though Notre-Dame is very old,” Adrien Willeme, a stonemason who worked on the cathedral, tells Thomas Adamson and John Leicester from Associated Press. “Because it has been so carefully restored and cleaned, it looks truly extraordinary.”

Investigators have not yet been able to determine the cause of the fire, reports Agence France-Presse. The prevailing theory is that the fire was an accident, possibly caused by an unextinguished cigarette butt or an electrical problem.

Once the cathedral reopens, visitors will need to book a specific entry time, but entry will still be free. Reservations will be available in early December on Notre Dame’s website and through a forthcoming mobile app. Guests can show up without a reservation, but they can expect long wait times, reports the Just‘Lindsey Tramuta. Only 2,700 visitors are allowed in at a time. Free tours of the cathedral’s exterior are also available.

Before the fire, Notre-Dame welcomed more than 12 million visitors each year – and that number is expected to rise once it reopens.