Trump says he will attend Notre Dame reopening in Paris, his first overseas trip since election

President-elect Donald Trump said late Monday that he will travel to Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, a grand celebration set to take place this 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 wrote on his social media platform 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. It will be a very special day for all!”

Notre Dame was damaged in a fire that raged for 12 hours on April 15, 2019, nearly destroying the iconic 1,200-year-old church. Although experts said at the time that the restoration could take up to 40 years, Macron vowed to rebuild in five years.

“The decision to rebuild Notre Dame was about our capacity to save, restore, sometimes reinvent what we are by preserving where we come from,” Macron told 60 Minutes. “This is a message of achievement.”

Paris has been preparing for the reopening of the cathedral, which will be marked by days of celebration starting on Saturday. Laurent Ulrich, the Archbishop of Paris, along with Macron, will preside over Saturday’s service, which will be broadcast on French television. Nearly 170 bishops from France and around the world are expected to participate in the celebration, along with one priest from each of the 106 parishes in the Diocese of Paris, and one priest from each of the seven Eastern Catholic Churches, accompanied by Catholics from these communities, according to Notre Dame’s website. 

The inaugural mass, with the consecration of the high altar, will be on Sunday.

Trump was in the White House for his first term when the fire occurred, and tweeted at the time that it was “So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.”

Macron, who has led France since 2017, was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump for winning the 2024 presidential election — posting on social media before Trump was projected the winner. During Trump’s first term, the media had labeled their relationship a “bromance,” although there are likely to be fractures in the second Trump administration amid differences of opinion on NATO and Ukraine.

This is the first international trip for Trump since he won the election last month. He visited France four times during his first term, and Melania Trump, who is Catholic, prayed at Notre Dame in 2017, before the fire.