French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will jointly visit the construction site of the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral on Monday, which was devastated by a fire in 2019, the Elysée announced on Friday, January 6. Fumio Kishida will begin a tour of Europe and then North America in Paris on Monday to meet his counterparts from other G7 countries, which Japan has assumed the presidency of this year.
Emmanuel Macron and his host will travel to Notre-Dame before a working lunch at the Elysée that will focus on the challenges of the G7 presidency and the “extraordinary partnership” between the two countries. “As a symbol of this shared desire to rebuild in the face of adversity, this visit will make it possible to showcase exceptional French know-how in the field of heritage,” stated the French Presidency. This is the first time Emmanuel Macron has invited a foreign leader to the site, the presidency argued.
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Reopening of the cathedral to the public in 2024
Reconstruction work on Notre-Dame continues actively with the aim of reopening the cathedral to the public in 2024. The president will also share “all of France’s support for the Japanese presidency of the G7 and the G7’s actions in support of Ukraine” in the face of Russian aggression, the Elysée said. The two leaders will review bilateral cooperation in in the fields of energy, defence, new technologies and culture.They will also talk about their “Indo-Pacific partnership”, where France wants to step up its ambitions and strategic cooperation with seven territories.
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After Paris, Kishida will travel to Rome on January 10th, London on January 11th and the Canadian capital Ottawa on January 12th before meeting US President Joe Biden in Washington on January 13th. The next summit of the G7 leaders is scheduled for May in Hiroshima (western Japan), a city destroyed in 1945 by the first atomic bombing in history.