Emmanuel Macron at Notre-Dame de Paris: "We will meet our 2024 objective, by doing well and beautiful"

The weather, a driving rain of the most "Dutch", did not discourage either the officials or the journalists, Japanese and French mixed.

This Monday evening, Emmanuel Macron had made an appointment with the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, on the restoration site of Notre-Dame cathedral, ravaged by a fire on April 15, 2019, still in all memories.

A brief and wet visit intended to highlight the know-how of French companies and undoubtedly also to highlight the progress of the work of the "great burnt".

Timing and security conditions oblige, no visit of the interior of the monument for the officials.

It was from a terrace 26 m high, behind the bedside, that Emmanuel Macron received Fumio Kishida, the first foreign head of state to be invited by the president.

“I know that Japan was very affected by the Notre-Dame fire.

When we discussed his visit to Paris, I had promised to take him to see the construction site,” confided the president.

Read alsoNotre-Dame de Paris: at the heart of the construction site, 2 years before the reopening

It is to General Jean-Louis Georgelin, in charge of the conservation and restoration site, that he returned the task of making a point, with his usual verve, undoubtedly difficult to translate into Japanese, on the work in progress. .

He notably recalled that a first stone vault, that of the north transept, had been rebuilt and that the scaffolding allowing the reconstruction of the spire should begin to rise in the sky of Paris in April 2023.

Thanks for companies and craftsmen

Good news that even impressed the Japanese Prime Minister.

“We were very shocked by the fire in the cathedral.

In 2019, we also had a fire at a monument, Shuri Castle, in Okinawa.

We know the difficulty of these sites and I am surprised at the speed of that of Notre-Dame ”, relayed his translator.

Highlighting "our ancestral know-how", the "collective work of the teams", the "remarkable work of companies and craftsmen", Emmanuel Macron welcomed the progress of the site, but also his decision, very fast, to have set a course.

“It had to be done, to give hope to the day after the fire.

You couldn't say to the French, who love Notre-Dame, you're going to take ten or fifteen years of work.

We must thank all the teams today and that is why we are here too, said the Head of State.

It was a huge mobilization.

By setting a course, by mobilizing on the objective, we move forward.

So, yes, we will meet this 2024 objective, by doing well and looking good.

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