Notre-Dame, and many churches in France, are owned by the state and merely used by the church. That gave the French government, and President Macron, a big voice in the restoration project.

President-elect Donald Trump will attend the reopening celebration for Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this weekend, his first foreign trip since the election.

For the French, the 850-year-old Gothic cathedral has been both a source of inspiration and a symbol of the nation’s glorious past.