It is a little after 7.15 p.m., this Monday, April 15, 2019, in the golden lounge of the Elysée. The president completed the recording of his speech, which TF 1 was to broadcast at 8 p.m. On the teleprompter parade the tracks that he retained after three months of Great debate to get out of the yellow vests crisis. Crucial speech for the Head of State who hopes to put out the social fire and relaunch his five-year term. " It went? », He asks, probing his wife Brigitte as always. "Yes, but we have a problem ...", replied the First Lady.
For a few minutes, she has known what her husband ignores: Notre-Dame is burning! Soazig de la Moissonnière, official photographer of the Elysée, and Arnaud Jolens, head of the Image and Events division, saw his confusion. They silently share their amazement on Telegram but they too prefer to wait until the end of the intervention.
Is the cathedral threatened? What means are implemented? Questions immediately erupt between Macron and his closest advisers who have just tumbled into the living room. "What do I do with the recording?" », Asks Arnaud Jolens. The ongoing tragedy at Notre-Dame sweeps away everything, even the most important speech of his mandate. At 7.40 p.m., the Elysee Palace announced that the speech was postponed. No way the president's speech - some measures have already leaked, causing his annoyance - is roaming the editorial staff. Trash can !
Arnaud Jolens destroys the files and recovers the cassettes in the TF 1 OB van, parked outside. Macron is on his way to the Île de la Cité, but the sedan is slowed down by the streets invaded by onlookers. Many cry, others pray. All are amazed. “Thought for all Catholics and for all French people. Like all our compatriots, I am sad tonight to see this part of us burn ”, relates his Twitter account at 8:05 pm.
Notre-Dame de Paris on fire: the moment when the arrow collapses
Fifteen minutes earlier, the famous spire of Viollet-le-Duc was swallowed up by the blaze. He plans to speak out, but what can be said when the world holds its breath in the face of the cathedral torture? The word, powerless to contain the flames, will not appease anything. We must give the emergency services time to regain control of the fire.
"The impression of being in a nightmare"
He fades away, the time of a return trip to the Elysee Palace, while Edouard Philippe, upset, dries his tears in the middle of a crowd of officials: prelates, elected officials, ministers form a body around the mayor , Anne Hidalgo, of Mgr Aupetit, the archbishop of Paris, and of the rector of the cathedral, Patrick Chauvet, increasingly pale. Four hundred sappers are busy, spears brandished towards the building, but the wind is now blowing towards the north tower. General Gallet, boss of the Paris brigade, guesses the disastrous domino to come: the frame of the belfry, by being consumed, will make the bells fall, dragging the towers and the facade, the nave… Nine centuries of history swept away in a few hours ...
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It is 9.40 p.m. in the prefecture conference room. Sketch in hand, Jean-Claude Gallet briefs the president in a few precise sentences. Beside him, Richard Ferrand, listens, "the ball in the stomach", the fears of the general. “I felt like I was in a nightmare. Go find out why, I remembered that the big bell tower in the belfry is called Emmanuel… Everything was unreal, ”recalls the President of the National Assembly.
Around the table, none of the ministers said a word. Option 1, Gallet exposes, is to leave the cathedral to its dismal fate and to secure the surrounding buildings. The other is to send a commando to the heart of the new front to “cut the fire in two”, with the risk of losing the commando… and probably many other soldiers if Notre-Dame collapses… This is the option that the officer clearly chose, to the point of sending twenty volunteers into the passageways. It is there, in this thin footbridge between the two towers, that the future of the thousand-year-old cathedral will be played out in the next half hour.
"The risk for the firefighters was very important, but the general was very convincing, saying that the blow was worth trying," recalls Franck Riester, the Minister of Culture. There is still time for the president to veto this last-ditch operation. But no. "Go ahead", validates Macron, who encourages him with a wink and a pat on the shoulder, as shown in the images of the TF 1 documentary on this "battle".
11:15 p.m., the president wants to "go and see"
After an hour of fierce fighting, this one is almost won. Riester - whose eyes have not let go of the progression in column on the passage of the twenty "fireflies", headlamp on the helmet - sends a text of hope to the president at 10.58 p.m., accompanied by images of the drone which shows the fire at last circumscribed.
A quarter of an hour later, the Head of State finally loosens his jaws ... but makes his security service wince. He wants to go "see". Hand in hand with Brigitte, he zigzags between puddles and pipes, then positions himself under the porch, under the organ. “There was this huge hole in the roof, the acrid fumes, the heat, the incandescent debris… And at the back, the great golden cross of the altar was shining,” Ferrand recalls. “We were all between fear and relief. It was an overwhelming moment, ”abounds Riester. Despite the hum of the generators, a cathedral silence falls. “An incredible vision. Nobody dares to say anything ”, will testify later the president in an interview on the sidelines of a panting book on this crazy evening (“ The night of Notre-Dame by those who saved it ”, by Romain Gubert, Grasset, 2019).
Beside him, Mgr Chauvet, crushed by emotion, cannot believe his eyes: "the virgin at the pillar is still there", he slips to him while the president shows him the "cross still standing" . “We lived a moment of great intensity, of warm proximity,” confides the rector of Notre-Dame to Le Parisien.
A Macron in a state of grace
Return to the square. Arnaud Jolens, called in emergency on the spot, positions the camera in front of Notre-Dame, whose massive silhouette, lit by the projectors, stands out in the Parisian night. At 11:33 p.m., Emmanuel Macron can finally project himself on the future of the building. “It's a terrible tragedy, but the worst has been avoided. This cathedral, we will all rebuild it together, ”he promises, before greeting one by one the sappers, exhausted and covered with soot, passing nearby. "Moved, he confided again, by the humility and nobility of these young people who embody the solidity of the country". “He was really impressed by their courage, their dedication, their professionalism. The president has the cult of the hero ”, explains a relative.
For a little, his close guard would not be far from describing a Macron in a state of grace that evening… “The president has fully grasped the urgency of rebuilding Notre-Dame. He was able to find the words to make this catastrophe a unifying event, a real moment of national communion, while the country had been tearing itself apart for months, ”decrypts an Elysée adviser. As if he had seen a political light ignite in the blaze of April 15? "When, ten days later, he will finally present his measures against the crisis to the French (in the form of a press conference, and no longer a speech on television), he will evoke the need to reconstruct art. to be French ”. “He seized the opportunity. This shock made it possible to turn the page of yellow vests ”, wants to believe another of his closest collaborators.
On April 16 at 4 p.m., the day after the disaster, Jean-Louis Georgelin was summoned to the Elysee Palace. It is to this retired general, former chief of staff of the armies, Catholic and "strong man" that he intends to entrust the reins of the reconstruction site. “I spontaneously accepted because, like many French people, I am deeply attached to the cathedral, where I often went to mass. It was during this interview that the President of the Republic told me of his desire that Notre-Dame be restored in five years. Like him, I thought that the operation had to be done quickly, not in twenty years as some already imagined. I didn't say to myself, five years? Impossible! Military people like challenges, this one suited me very well. For this kind of large project, a mobilizing objective is necessary. The President gave me the keys. He told me his confidence, it's up to me to manage. But I know I can count on his full support, ”confides the general, at the head of the public establishment created last December. “We are doing everything so that on April 16, 2024, the cathedral is returned to worship and visitors. "
“We criticized the president for this story of five years, but basically, the experts did not tick. He gave a tremendous boost ”, defends his“ Mr. Heritage ”, Stéphane Bern. “He is a man of history, a lover of old stones, like no other president since Mitterrand. He was deeply moved by this disaster. And above all, he acted. Behind this promise of five years, there is undoubtedly another that Emmanuel Macron made in pett o: to always be president when the Te Deum resonates.
And now ?
This is the “building site within the building site”: the dismantling of the largest organ in France, miraculously spared during the Notre-Dame fire on April 15, 2019, began on Monday. The symphonic instrument, invaded by lead dust, must be cleaned piece by piece, which is not an easy task: 8,000 pipes divided into 115 stops, over 13 meters high! The “voice” of the cathedral should be ready to resonate on April 16, 2024, when the “Te Deum” will be celebrated, supposed to mark the rebirth of Notre-Dame, five years after the terrible fire, as Emmanuel Macron undertook. For the time being, 900 million euros in donations have been collected to finance this titanic work which must restore the building "identically". As it was decided at the beginning of July, it is therefore a true copy of the arrow built in 1859 by Viollet-le-Duc, which will rise in the sky over Paris within four years.
A five-year crisis period in 6 episodes
1. The day Macron disowned General de Villiers
2. The day Macron was confronted with the Benalla affair
3. The day Macron learned of Nicolas Hulot's resignation
4. The day Macron saw the yellow vests ransack the Arc de Triomphe
5. The day Macron saw Notre-Dame burn
6. The day Macron confined the country
