Notre Dame: Embattled Macron seeks boost from reopening

One dignitary who will not be attending is Pope Francis, though he has sent a message that will be read out on Saturday.

The Pope’s relations with France are cordial rather than friendly. He is reported to have been angered by French policies to cut immigration, and by Macron’s decision to put the right to abortion in the constitution.

In the French press, the Pope is said to be more interested in the younger and growing Christian communities of the southern hemisphere than the medieval churches of Europe.

The fire on 15 April 2019 destroyed the medieval roof-timbers, the spire and three sections of stone vaulting. An appeal for donors raised €850m ($897m; £704m), and 2,000 masons, carpenters, art-restorers, engineers and architects worked on the project.

“The moment I looked inside on the day after the fire, I knew that everything would be all right. The damage was nothing like as bad as I had feared,” said cathedral chief architect Philippe Villeneuve, who disputes the widespread theory that Notre-Dame came close to total collapse.

“Apart from replacing the roof and spire, the main task was decontamination. Everything was covered in lead oxide powder. But that meant we could restore and clean – which explains why the cathedral looks so beautiful today.”

Before the fire, the cathedral was already deemed to be in a state of severe disrepair, and scaffolding was in place to renovate the spire and other external parts much damaged by corrosion.

Some 12 million people per year were visiting the cathedral, a number which is now expected to rise. A new route around the building has been devised to cope with the 100 visitors a minute expected to come here at the height of the tourist season.