(The Hill) – President-elect Trump said Monday that he will attend the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral next weekend.
“It is an honor to announce that I will be traveling to Paris, France, on Saturday to attend the re-opening of the Magnificent and Historic Notre Dame Cathedral, which has been fully restored after a devastating fire five years ago,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“President Emmanuel Macron has done a wonderful job ensuring that Notre Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so,” he added. “It will be a very special day for all!”
In the spring of 2019, the cathedral suffered a devastating fire, with its spire and wooden latticework of its roof collapsing. Trump, who was president at the time, lamented the fire at an event in Minnesota.
“It’s one of the great treasures of the world,” Trump said of the cathedral. “Probably, if you think about it … it might be greater than almost any museum in the world. And it’s burning very badly. It looks like it’s burning to the ground.”
Trump also weighed in on how to manage the fire on social media at the time, saying that maybe “flying water tankers could be used to put it out.”
French officials pushed back on the then-president’s suggestion to use flying water tankers to fight the Notre Dame fire. A social media account for France’s Sécurité Civile, the civil defense and crisis management agency, said that scores “of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control.”
“All means being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral,” the agency continued at the time.
According to the Notre Dame Cathedral’s website, there will be reopening ceremonies next Saturday and Sunday.
“The reopening ceremonies will begin on December 7 and 8, 2024, followed by an octave of events until December 15,” the cathedral’s website reads.
