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00:00Ministers, Prefects, Mayor, Your Excellencies, the Cardinals, ladies and gentlemen, heads
00:15of these projects, dear artisans and compagnons, dear friends, I am very happy to be here among
00:25you today.
00:27And I think that, for all of us, it is a huge emotion to be able to meet again in this place,
00:37in this place which is our cathedral, and to be able to meet here a few days before
00:45the 7th and 8th of December, in a place where five years ago was just a field of ruins,
00:55where we all remember the lead that fell to the ground, this open tragedy that all French
01:05people endured, that all Parisians lived through, or that all Catholics around the world.
01:11The whole planet was shaken on that sad day in April.
01:18The shock of reopening the cathedral will be, I hope, as strong as that that happened
01:26in April, but it will be a shock of hope.
01:31This will be a metamorphosis that we owe to each and every one of you here.
01:36You are the alchemists of this project, and you transformed coal into artistry, if I may
01:45say so.
01:47The furnace of Notre Dame was a national scar, and you were its healing balm, thanks to your
01:56work and your commitment.
01:59I'd like to thank each and every one of you.
02:02I'd like to first of all thank the firefighters of Paris for their courage.
02:07They threw themselves into a huge furnace, which is something that is only the stuff
02:13of nightmares, and they set an example.
02:17They showed an example of courage and self-sacrifice, and I think many of us here remember this
02:27courage of our firefighters, the youngest of whom would run into the fire and help save
02:37our dear cathedral.
02:40They were the first who started the work of rebuilding it in a certain sense, and then
02:45we had this gesture of solidarity that went all over the world, 350 million philanthropists
02:54and donors, some of whom are present here today, people, individuals, and companies
02:59whom I'd like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to, and it is your generosity that allowed
03:05us to rebuild Notre Dame, French families, entrepreneurs, people who donated from one
03:12euro to hundreds of millions of euros.
03:15You all mobilized, and I recognize many faces here, and I'd like to thank you for what you
03:28have done.
03:30You have shown that Notre Dame is part of our country, that it belongs to all Christians,
03:35it belongs to France, and to the whole world.
03:38It is something that surpasses us.
03:40It's bigger than us.
03:42The foundation of Notre Dame, the foundation of our heritage, the Fondation de France,
03:46the Centre of National Monuments managed to collect these donations, and I thank them
03:53very sincerely, and so that we didn't lose a single centime, we managed to do this with
04:06professionalism.
04:07I'd like to thank every team that worked on this.
04:12Did all this work with energy and enthusiasm?
04:15You answered the call of this challenge.
04:18It is true that in April 2019, I had asked for it to take five years, I had wished for
04:26it to take five years to rebuild it, and many told us at the beginning that this would not
04:31be possible, that it was a crazy idea, that we had not managed to do this well.
04:38But behind this simple goal, there was a coming together of many people's wills, and this
04:45is something that you managed to do.
04:48You met the challenge, and you did what was thought impossible.
04:53There was, of course, the public institutions and their teams, and there was also a leader,
05:03General Georges Hollande, and, from 2019 to 2023, he was the face and voice of this project.
05:18I would really like to dedicate a moment to him, if you allow me to, because he should
05:22have been here with us today, and I think he would have been proud of you all.
05:36I think he would have called you all by your name, as was his custom, with his strong voice.
05:51We managed to draw in our ranks in order to continue work under Philippe Rousset in 2023,
05:58and I would also like to thank him.
05:59You can also be very proud of the work that you did here, and of all the teams working
06:05for the different national institutions, and I think you really would have made the general
06:13proud.
06:14You managed to fulfil an amazing project under different architects, different teams, under
06:24Philippe Villeneuve.
06:32I think this cathedral runs through his veins, and Pascal Prunet and their teams, the different
06:40engineers, the different project labs, you all carried out a remarkable work, and I would
06:49like to very sincerely thank you for the commitment with which you carried out all of this work
06:56for long days and nights during the past years.
07:01The city of Paris, Madame Maire, and all your teams, thanks to whose amazing coordination
07:13this work could be carried out, I would also like to thank the Paris police prefecture,
07:18which managed to work day and night, carry out security tests to make sure that the cathedral
07:25could open up on time, the prefecture of the ÃŽle-de-France, the greater Paris area,
07:31that also spared no efforts to be able to find practical solutions to various issues,
07:39of course, the Ministry of Culture, the different services of the ÃŽle-de-France region, the
07:51ministry had the difficult task to restore national treasures, paintings, works of art,
08:01and this allowed, and depended on the mobilisation of so many teams from the Ministry of Culture,
08:07and I would like to thank those teams, and so there were also many other ministries that
08:13contributed to this project.
08:18And your Excellency, Bishop, your teams from the Paris diocese were also amazing, and I'd
08:25like to thank you for the cooperation, the extraordinary cooperation, for the artists
08:33that you chose to carry out this work.
08:35We saw this earlier with the work of Monsieur Bardet and Monsieur Dubuisson, but the work
08:41of all these artists, the work of the designers, the sound engineers, the people who designed
08:50the new visitors' welcoming centre, and all this artistic design, and this very fruitful
08:58cooperation which was the product of a dialogue under the impulse of Monseigneur Bardot-Dumas,
09:07Ulrich, among others, and I am infinitely grateful to you all and to all your teams.
09:15All of you who are gathered here today are aware of what we owe to you.
09:21There are 2,000 men and women who spent their days and nights on this project, and you turned
09:28this challenge into a reality.
09:33You followed a tradition that went back more than 800 years, the tradition of the guilds
09:39of the Middle Ages, of those compagnons who went beyond themselves for something that
09:44was bigger, and so you managed to keep this tradition and this hope alive.
09:52You managed to prolong this tradition, and each and every one of you is a part of this
09:59collective chain.
10:02You allowed us to rediscover the fact that this cathedral was already a treasure made
10:08of men and women who sometimes sacrificed their lives for it, and you are now part of
10:15that history, and no one can ever take this away from you.
10:21You have made this project a metaphor of our country, of our nation, that each man
10:26and woman is necessary, and each and every one of you played your role.
10:35You placed a stone, you carried out a task without which the totality of what we have
10:42achieved here would not have been possible.
10:47Each of you, according to your various talents, those who organised, those who planned, those
10:54who coordinated, those who secured and protected the project, those who assured the smooth
11:00running of logistics, all of you were indispensable, because this was a choreography that no one
11:08from outside would know that you were doing this, but no second was lost.
11:13Those who were in charge of the installations, of the scaffoldings, the crane operators,
11:20the collective restoration specialists, the fire security specialists, the storage experts,
11:33thanks to all of you, this place became a true village, and people would meet and talk
11:39and chat in a sort of family, a family that came to be during these last five years, and
11:49during all this time, all this time, there was this acrobatic show above us of people
12:01working on the restoration, the largest scaffolding in Europe, the largest project, a sort of
12:08chrysalis out of which our new spire came back to life.
12:16Let's not forget the electricians, the energy specialists, the lighting specialists.
12:24You brought blood back into this building, and you gave new life to it.
12:34There is, of course, wood, metal, and stone.
12:40Thank you all for bringing our forest, our timber roof framework back to life.
12:48This wood that came from all our regions, north, south, east, west, thanks to many philanthropists,
12:562,000 oak trees went through the hands of our woodworkers.
13:03Thank you for the Forest of France for being here today and allowing us to rebuild our cathedral.
13:09So 2,000 oaks with carpenters and roofers and woodcutters who rediscovered certain forms
13:19of workmanship that the 20th century had forgotten.
13:27We recreated tools, ancient tools that are true products of human excellence, specialists
13:34in marquetry.
13:39We were earlier lost in this forest, up in those timber structures that allowed us to
13:49place our spire on top of our cathedral once again.
13:57Thank you to everyone who restored and shaped metal in all its facets, founders, the polishers,
14:12all the different metal workers.
14:14Thank you to the artisans of stone.
14:18Thank you to all the people who allow us to rediscover this fresh stone, this stone that
14:25we had never seen in such a light.
14:28Thank you to masons, to the stone counters, to the sculptors, the restorers of the statues,
14:37the people who brought back the newness of the stone, who brought back the grimaces of
14:42these gargoyles who are more scary today than they ever have been before.
14:48And thank you for those who cut out these stones from the quarries of Picardy and elsewhere.
14:55Thank you to those who restored the artwork, who brought back the colours of the different
15:00paintings.
15:01Thank you to the masters, glass workers who managed to preserve the incredible colours
15:07of the stained glass windows.
15:09Thank you to the restorers of the pipe organs who have given the voice back to our cathedral.
15:15And we will soon hear this voice ring out loud again on the 7th of December.
15:20And I'm not forgetting all the archaeologists supported by the National Institute of Archaeology,
15:29all these archaeologists who managed to go into the history of this building to discover
15:34new hidden treasures.
15:42Thank you to the researchers, to the members of the CNRS, to all the partner institutes,
15:51and thank you to all those whose names I can't list today but who are part of this collective
15:56action.
15:58We had never seen such a project before.
16:02Each and every one of you took part in this once-in-a-lifetime project.
16:12And it showcased the goodwill of each of us, even in such difficult conditions and in such
16:19a short time.
16:20But during these five years, Notre-Dame was a project of what had never been seen before.
16:25250 companies worked here together, small companies, medium companies, large conglomerates,
16:34and you sometimes abolished the differences you had, the competition between your companies,
16:44in order to work together to rebuild our cathedral.
16:50There was this imperative of durability, and you managed to make the exceptional your quotidian.
16:58And I'd like to thank you for this.
17:01You made all of France into a project, because even though there are other people gathered
17:09here today, but I'm not forgetting the people working in different factories and workshops
17:16all around France, there are workers who contributed to this project.
17:21There was a spirit of unique, singular brotherhood and fraternity, and this is something that
17:28I'd like to see live on, because it is what binds us together.
17:33You have been a large family for the last five years, with moments of joy and pride,
17:39and moments of sadness, too.
17:40I mentioned it earlier with the passing of the general, and someone else I'm not forgetting,
17:48which is Hazine Edna, who worked on the scaffolding of Notre-Dame, and who got along so well with
17:57the general.
18:12You showed the world that nothing can stand in the way of your willpower and your audacity
18:18and your hope.
18:20You showed us that we should raise our eyes to see the spire of Notre-Dame and to rediscover
18:29our cathedral from inside.
18:34And our nation's recognition towards you is great.
18:42You will receive a special diploma from the Ministry, each and every one of you, each
18:50person who worked on this project.
18:52Today is a moving day for us, Your Excellency, the Bishop.
18:58We will now give you back your cathedral, to which you will be able to welcome the faithful
19:03in the world, and the whole world.
19:06And for me, it's the last visit of this worksite.
19:12And for these years to come, never forget that you repaired, that you contributed to
19:20the reinvention of something, that you loved this place, and that you rebuilt it.
19:28Never forget that during these five past years, you shared, all of you together, the most
19:36beautiful worksite of this century.
19:40And I'm also not forgetting your families, whom I'd also like to thank, because I know
19:45that they sacrificed you for these five years, that you managed to rebuild this cathedral
19:52in five years.
19:54And this is great pride for our entire nation.
19:58I am infinitely grateful to you.
20:02France is infinitely grateful to you for this.
20:05You rebuilt our cathedral in five years.
20:10And this is something we owe to you, so thank you.