General Jean-Louis Georgelin, special representative of French President Emmanuel Macron to lead the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris after its fire in April 2019, has died in a mountain accident in the French Pyrenees,
Georgelin, who was 74 years old and was taking an excursion, suffered a fall near the port of Faustin at an altitude of 2,650 meters in the Ariège department, according to sources from the Gendarmerie, quoted by French public television.
The general, who had been chief of the General Staff of the French Army from 2006 to 2010, was appointed in December 2019 by the president, Emmanuel Macron, at the head of the organization focused on the restoration and conservation of Notre Dame.
From the command post, his main missions were to guarantee the correct development of the works, with the deadlines that had been set, and to inform the public and also the donors of the progress of the works.
“With the death of General Jean-Louis Georgelin, the Nation loses one of its great soldiers. France, one of your great servants. And Notre-Dame, the architect of its rebirth", Macron wrote in a brief message on the X network.
After the fire on April 15, 2019 that damaged what is one of the most emblematic monuments of the French capital, the goal is to reopen it to worship and visitors at the end of 2024.
Georgelin had trained at the prestigious Saint Cyr academy, where he entered in 1967 and opted for the infantry. He was precisely the commander of the Mutzig infantry regiment before joining the General Staff of the Army.
After being promoted to brigadier general in 1997, he joined the Stabilization Force for the former Yugoslavia (SFOR).
In 2002 he became the chief of the private General Staff of the President of the Republic and from there he went four years later to become the chief of the Army General Staff.
