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News Analysis
The 860-year-old cathedral has been repaired in a time frame many thought impossible. But rather than basking in success, President Emmanuel Macron is mired in political crisis.
Dec. 5, 2024Updated 11:08 a.m. ET
When the president of France speaks at the reopening on Saturday of the fire-ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral, the jewel in the heart of Paris, it should by rights be a delicious moment of glory.
Few had believed it was possible to repair the 860-year-old monument in the short time-frame President Emmanuel Macron announced the day after the 2019 disaster.
Glory, however, is eluding the French leader as he presides over a country in profound crisis, with a fallen government, no budget and so much political division that there seems no clear path forward. Increasingly, Mr. Macron is hearing not professions of gratitude but demands for his resignation.
“I don’t see what can happen to put him back up on his horse,” said Vincent Martigny, a political science professor at the University of Nice, Côte d’Azur. “He has the smell of a never-ending ending.”
Many blame Mr. Macron for the country’s current political mess. After his party was trounced in the European elections last June, he shocked his cabinet and the country by calling for snap elections for the 577-seat National Assembly. The result, he promised, would offer the country some “clarification.”
Instead, voters elected a messy, deadlocked Parliament, with seats divided into three camps — none with a clear path to pass bills — and two emboldened extremist parties, both of whose leaders are challengers for the president’s job.
