President-elect Donald Trump embarked on his first foreign trip since his November 2024 electoral victory, joining Saturday’s reopening ceremonies for Paris’s famous Notre Dame Cathedral.
The weekend’s celebration, which drew an estimated 50 world leaders and high security, kicks off an octave of events marking the restoration of the famous twelfth-century Gothic church to its place in Catholic liturgical life and French tourism following a devastating April 15, 2019 fire. Firefighters stood helpless as the blaze — believed to have been accidentally ignited by an electrical failure or a lit cigarette — consumed the roof and spire of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thwarting their efforts to douse the flames with water was a centuries’ old waterproofing technique involving covering the roof with a lead sheet.
NEW: Donald Trump and French president Emmanuel Macron meet up…
