Daily Times

France on Saturday prepared to throw open the doors of Notre Dame cathedral after a half-decade closure during a ceremony attended by dozens of world leaders celebrating the rebirth of the Paris landmark ravaged by a devastating fire. Held up as an example of French creativity and resilience by President Emmanuel Macron, Notre Dame’s renaissance so soon after a 2019 blaze comes at a difficult time for the country which is without a permanent government. The two-hour re-opening ceremony will officially begin when archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich knocks three times on the doors of the cathedral at 1800 GMT with a staff cut from one of the wooden roof beams that survived the inferno five years ago. Macron has scored a major coup by attracting US President-elect Donald Trump, on his first foreign trip since his re-election, for the ceremony along with some 40 other leaders, including Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and British heir to the throne, Prince William. It is “a cathedral like we have never seen before,” Philippe Jost, the head of the restoration project, told Franceinfo radio, saying he was proud to “show the whole world” a “great collective success and a source of pride for all of France”.