NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump will attend the reopening celebration for Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this weekend, his first foreign trip since the election.
The cathedral is set to reopen Saturday after more than five years of reconstruction following a devastating fire in 2019 that engulfed and nearly destroyed the soaring Paris landmark. The ceremonies being held Saturday and Sunday will be high-security affairs, with about 50 heads of state and government expected to attend.
Trump announced that he will be among them in a post on his Truth Social site Monday evening.
“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,” he wrote. “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!”
The trip will be Trump’s first abroad since he won November’s presidential election. He traveled to Scotland and Ireland in May 2023, as a candidate, to visit his local golf courses.
Trump was president in 2019 when a massive fire engulfed Notre Dame, collapsing its spire and threatening to destroy one of the world’s greatest architectural treasures, known for its mesmerizing stained glass.
Trump watched the inferno in horror, along with the rest of the world.
“So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris,” he wrote on what was then named Twitter, offering his advice to the city.
“Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!” he wrote.
French officials appeared to respond shortly after, noting that “All means” were being used to extinguish the flames, “except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral.”
Trump also spoke with Macron and Pope Francis at the time to offer his condolences and said he had offered them “the help of our great experts on renovation and construction.”
Trump and Macron have had a complicated relationship.
During Trump’s first term in office, Macron proved to be among the world leaders most adept at managing the American president’s whims as he tried to develop a personal connection built in no small part on flattery.
Macron was the guest of honor at Trump’s first state dinner and Trump traveled to France several times. But the relationship soured as Trump’s term progressed and Macron criticized him for questioning the need for NATO and raising doubts about America’s commitment to the mutual-defense pact.
As he ran for a second term this year, Trump often mocked Macron on the campaign trail, imitating his accent and threatening to impose steep tariffs on wine and champagne bottles shipped to the US if France tried to tax American companies.
After Trump won another term last month, Macron rushed to win favor with the president-elect. He was among the first global leaders to congratulate Trump — even before The Associated Press called the race in his favor — and beat UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to the punch in delivering a congratulatory phone call.
“Congratulations, President @realDonaldTrump,” Macron posted on X early on Nov 6. “Ready to work together as we did for four years. With your convictions and mine. With respect and ambition. For more peace and prosperity.”
Macron and other European leaders are trying to persuade Trump not to abandon America’s support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s nearly three-year invasion. European leaders hope to convince Trump that a victory by Russia would be viewed as a defeat for the US — and for the incoming president, by extension — hoping to sell him on the need to pursue an end to the war more favorable to Kyiv than he might otherwise seek.
Trump over the weekend announced that he intends to nominate real estate developer Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France. The elder Kushner was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after pleading guilty years earlier to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations.
The reopening of Notre Dame will be an elaborate, multi-day celebration, beginning Saturday.
Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich will preside at a reopening service that afternoon, banging on Notre Dame’s shuttered doors with his staff to reopen them, according to the cathedral’s website.
The archbishop will also symbolically reawaken Notre Dame’s thunderous grand organ. The fire that melted the cathedral’s lead roofing coated the huge instrument in toxic dust. Its 8,000 pipes have been painstakingly disassembled, cleaned and retuned.
Macron will attend and address the VIP guests.
After the service, opera singers Pretty Yende, from South Africa, and Julie Fuchs, from France; Chinese pianist Lang Lang; Paris-born cellist Yo-Yo Ma; Benin-born singer Angelique Kidjo; Lebanese singer Hiba Tawaji and others will perform at a concert Saturday evening, according to the show’s broadcaster, France Télévisions.
On Sunday morning, the Paris archbishop will lead an inaugural Mass and consecration of the new altar.
Nearly 170 bishops from France and other countries will join the celebration, along with priests from all 106 parishes in the Paris diocese. The Mass will be followed by a “fraternal buffet” for the needy.
Ile de la Cité, where the cathedral sits in the middle of the River Seine, will be blocked off to tourists for the events. A public viewing area with room for 40,000 spectators will be set up along the Seine’s southern bank.
Trump says he’ll attend Notre Dame Cathedral reopening celebration in Paris this weekend
https://arab.news/wjkv7
Trump says he’ll attend Notre Dame Cathedral reopening celebration in Paris this weekend
- Trump announced that he will be among them in a post on his Truth Social site Monday evening
- “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,” he wrote
Youth voters take center stage in Bangladesh election after student-led regime change
- About 45% of Bangladeshis eligible to vote in Thursday’s election are aged 18-33
- Election follows 18 months of reforms after the end of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule
DHAKA: When he goes to the polls on Thursday, Atikur Rahman Toha will vote for the first time, believing that this election can bring democratic change to Bangladesh.
A philosophy student at Dhaka University, Toha was already eligible to vote in the 2024 poll but, like many others, he opted out.
“I didn’t feel motivated to even go to vote,” he said. “That was a truly one-sided election. The election system was fully corrupted. That’s why I felt demotivated. But this time I am truly excited to exercise my voting rights for the first time.”
The January 2024 vote was widely criticized by both domestic and international observers and marred by a crackdown on the opposition and allegations of voter fraud.
But the victory of the Awami League of ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was short-lived, as a few months later the government was ousted by a student-led uprising, which ended the 15-year rule of Bangladesh’s longest-serving leader.
The interim administration, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, took control in August 2024 and prepared a series of reforms to restructure the country’s political and institutional framework and organize the upcoming vote.
About 127.7 million Bangladeshis are eligible to cast their ballots, according to Election Commission data, with nearly a third of them, or 40.4 million, aged 18-29. Another 16.9 million are 30-33, making it a youth–dominated poll, with the voters hopeful the outcome will help continue the momentum of the 2024 student-led uprising.
“We haven’t yet fully transitioned into a democratic process. And there is no fully stable situation in the country,” Toha said. “After the election we truly hope that the situation will change.”
For Rawnak Jahan Rakamoni, also a Dhaka University student, who is graduating in information science, voting this time meant that her voice would count.
“We are feeling that we are heard, we will be heard, our opinion will matter,” she said.
“I think it is a very important moment for our country, because after many years of controversial elections, people are finally getting a chance to exercise their voting rights and people are hoping that this election will be more meaningful and credible. This should be a fair election.”
But despite the much wider representation than before, the upcoming vote will not be entirely inclusive in the absence of the Awami League, which still retains a significant foothold.
The Election Commission last year barred Hasina’s party from contesting the next national elections, after the government banned Awami League’s activities citing national security threats and a war crimes investigation against the party’s top leadership.
The UN Human Rights Office has estimated that between July 15 and Aug. 5, 2024 the former government and its security and intelligence apparatus, together with “violent elements” linked to the Awami League, “engaged systematically in serious human rights violations and abuses in a coordinated effort to suppress the protest movement.”
It estimated that at least 1,400 people were killed during the protests, with the majority shot dead from military rifles.
Rezwan Ahmed Rifat, a law student, wanted the new government to “ensure justice for the victims of the July (uprising), enforced disappearances, and other forms of torture” carried out by the previous regime.
The two main parties out of the 51 contesting Thursday’s vote are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat, which in 2013 was banned from political participation by Hasina’s government, heads an 11-party alliance, including the National Citizen Party formed by student leaders from the 2024 movement.
“I see this election as a turning point of our country’s democratic journey … It’s not just a normal election,” said Falguni Ahmed, a psychology student who will head to the polls convinced that no matter who wins, it will result in the “democratic accountability” of the next government.
Ahmed added: “People are not voting only for their leaders; they are also voting for the restoration of democratic credibility. That’s why this election is very different.”
