INSIDE THE RACE TO RESTORE NOTRE DAME

Behind the restoration of Paris's greatest landmark—and the controversies that nearly consumed it

- Noemie Bisserbe Kelly Crow

About a year before Notre Dame was set to reopen after a devastating fire, the French general tasked with overseeing the cathedral's reconstruction, Jean-Louis Georgelin, disappeared.

Georgelin, a strapping 74-year-old who had once served as President Jacques Chirac's military chief of staff, was taking a break in the summer to trek through the Pyrénées. He was known to hike alone and regularly climbed the Pyrénées' highest peaks. When he didn't return to his mountain refuge one August evening, the caretaker called the police to tell them the hiker hadn't returned. A helicopter was quickly dispatched, and hours later the police found Georgelin's body on the slopes of Mont Valier, a 9,311-foot mountain near the Spanish border.

The tragedy hit France hard. Georgelin was in the homestretch of one of the most complicated reconstruction projects that France had ever undertaken on a historical monument, and his death put even more pressure on French President Emmanuel Macron, who had staked much of his legacy on rapidly restoring a cathedral that for centuries has symbolized the country's civic and religious life.

Macron had to quickly replace his hardcharging general with a leader who could get the project over the finish line, and his choice could not have been more different: Philippe Jost, a lanky engineer who had spent much of his career in the cogs of the country's defense ministry making sure France's army was well-equipped.