Before the funeral of General Jean-Louis Georgelin, which will be celebrated on August 31 in his native village of Aspet, a national tribute will be paid to him on Friday morning in the courtyard of the Invalides. The obsession of this enigmatic senior officer – who, after the amazement caused by his appointment, had managed to impose his disconcerting style and make himself loved by the teams of the largest heritage site in the world? Meet the deadlines set by Emmanuel Macron: five years, not one more, to restore the damaged building. The bet was crazy, but it will in all likelihood be held.
Burning on April 15, 2019 in front of cameras around the world, Notre-Dame should reopen its doors in December 2024, demonstrating to the rest of the planet, according to the wishes of the President of the Republic, a kind of express and spectacular national resilience. But if the timetable is a priori guaranteed, there are still a thousand large-scale tasks to be carried out.
When Jean-Louis Georgelin was appointed, teeth had cringed… Commissioning a high-ranking officer to “whip” the teams of the Ministry of Culture, a five-star general who, from the first weeks, gave his ogre voice to seat his authority? The first impression had been frankly deleterious. But the all-military capacities for organization and anticipation that General Georgelin clearly demonstrated to transcend administrative and political red tape and his obsession above all with executing presidential deadlines as a good soldier proved Emmanuel Macron right.
For the past few days, all eyes have obviously been on Philippe Bélaval, current cultural adviser to Emmanuel Macron, who for ten years piloted the Center des monuments nationaux. As such, Bélaval also estimated in April 2019 that the management of the major restoration project would come naturally to him, even to the point of setting up an ephemeral task force the day after the fire, before learning with amazement of the appointment of General Georgelin…
Who, shortly after taking office, also tackled the CMN and its supposedly modest shipyards: “They are used to frigates, there, it’s an aircraft carrier. Yet it seems that the general and the senior official liked each other and learned to work together. Bélaval, close to the Macron spouses, knows Notre-Dame and its construction site inside out.
Georgelin embodied the great story of the restoration so much that replacing it with a new face would undoubtedly disturb this pretty tale of heritage resilience. Relying now on Jost, this much less media-oriented technician, would not cast an unwelcome shadow on the work of the deceased general. Nor, moreover, to the President of the Republic and to this flash reconstruction which will, perhaps, be one of the rare strokes of brilliance of this five-year term…
