2023-08-21 17:46:57
“Managing the restoration of Notre-Dame, as the President of the Republic had asked General Jean-Louis Georgelin, required extraordinary skills and the ability to carry out complex missions. First of all, directing the public establishment created for this purpose, which has about forty people. Rigorously plan the site then, manage its financing, the 840 million euros in donations and promote the know-how of the craftsmen. But above all, as he liked to recall, “ensure a unity of sight and command”, federate all the players and make them all converge towards the most important objective: reopening in 2024.
For all these missions, the general was the right person. I measured it every day during the three years that I worked under his authority as director within the public establishment. His ability to train, his unfailing determination, his charisma made it possible to mobilize all energies. As a soldier, he knew how to organise, plan, direct and lead men. Having served the State in the most eminent functions, he knew its mysteries and managed to win strategic decisions. Finally, a practicing Catholic, he was aware of working for the rebirth of a Catholic church, dedicated to worship, and not just a monument.
His sudden death occurs in this year 2023, which is that of carpenters. The assembly of the frame of the transepts began in July, that of the spire is in progress, then will come those of the nave and the choir. General Georgelin was delighted that at the end of the year we could once again see the spire of Notre-Dame taking shape in the sky of Paris. The cathedral will continue to move forward resolutely towards its rebirth since the general had established a precise timetable for the work, as well as the colossal budget for the project. All the public markets, around a hundred, have been launched. He had finally recruited the remarkable team of the public establishment today hard at work and mobilized.
His right-hand man, Philippe Jost, a brilliant general armaments engineer, has the material and the skills to become the executive director general of the public establishment, in conjunction with the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, who supervises the public establishment and follows the construction site day by day, and with the cultural adviser to the president Philippe Bélaval – former president of the Center des monuments nationaux. General Georgelin has embodied and advanced this project so much that it would seem incongruous to me to appoint another personality to head it, one year before the reopening of Notre-Dame. »
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