PARIS (AP) — The reopening of Notre Dame was a solemn celebration of cultural and spiritual renewal. Yet for some, the historic cathedral's revival also felt like a meticulously choreographed branding event from LVMH and other luxury conglomerates.
Bernard Arnault, the lowkey billionaire behind luxury powerhouse LVMH and a key Notre Dame donor who regularly tops the list of the world’s richest men, was at the center of the celebration. He was surrounded by his family, the French president, the archbishop and clergy, and the unmistakable symbols of his luxury empire’s influence, including its brands Louis Vuitton and Dior.
First lady Brigitte Macron held a conspicuous Lady Dior handbag. Louis Vuitton artistic director Pharrell Williams performed kitted out in Louis Vuitton. South African soprano Pretty Yende also contributed with a rendition of “Amazing Grace” while wearing a Dior gown adorned with 110 carats of diamonds.
Welcome to the “inauguration of the LVMH arena,” commented television journalist Yann Barthès about the cathedral ceremony this week.
LVMH has enjoyed unprecedented visibility in France in 2024, especially as a high-profile sponsor of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Some questioned the taste of such brand prominence occurring in a sacred space like the beloved Gothic monument, while noting LVMH's crucial contribution to the reconstruction.
“You can’t blame monsieur Arnault, a businessman, to do business. But people are now asking if it was an appropriate venue for a display like that,” said fashion PR consultant Theo Fontaine.
“It’s been a great PR year for LVMH—that’s for sure,” Fontaine added. “The Olympics and now Notre Dame. The whole world has been watching.”
Not far behind Arnault sat representatives of Kering, adding another layer to the ongoing rivalry between France’s two largest luxury conglomerates.
Kering CEO François-Henri Pinault attended alongside his wife, actress Salma Hayek, who wore a tailored Gucci coat. Gucci is Kering-owned.
The event, marking the culmination of an 840 million euro restoration effort following a devastating 2019 fire, brought together global dignitaries and cultural icons.
The Notre-Dame restoration united France’s corporate giants. Arnault’s 200 million euro donation was the largest, followed by 100 million euro contributions from Pinault and the Bettencourt-Meyers family of L’Oréal. Over 250 companies and 2,000 craftspeople contributed to the five-year restoration effort, which reconstructed the spire, repaired vaulted ceilings and restored stained-glass windows.
As the bells of Notre-Dame rang out across Paris, the cathedral’s rebirth stood as a testament to collective effort — but also for some as a symbol of how France’s seats of power and its prized luxury industry are inextricably intertwined.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron welcomed heads of state, including President-elect Donald Trump, Britain’s Prince William and Elon Musk, to a ceremony steeped in tradition — and high fashion.
Arnault attended with his family, including Dior chair and CEO Delphine Arnault, LVMH image and environment director Antoine Arnault, Moët Hennessy deputy CEO Alexandre Arnault, LVMH Watches CEO Frédéric Arnault, and Louis Vuitton product and development director for watches Jean Arnault. Antoine Arnault’s wife, model Natalia Vodianova, was also in attendance.
“I am proud of the outpouring of generosity from all over the world, to which the LVMH Group and my family wanted to contribute from the very beginning, which has enabled the restoration of this jewel of our heritage,” Antoine Arnault said in a statement posted to LinkedIn.
“This extraordinary project highlighted the excellence of French know-how and the talent of nearly 2,000 architects, workers and craftsmen of all trades,” he added.
Yet, public reaction was mixed
Papuna Biliseishvili, 24, who watched the ceremony in Paris, quipped, “If the devil wears Prada, the cathedral wears Louis Vuitton and Dior.”
Cari Lefebvre, 27, said “this is the most PR the Catholic Church has seen in centuries.”
Marie-Claire Dubois, a 45-year-old Catholic worshiper from Paris, expressed her disapproval. “This is a sacred place. It is beautiful that these companies contributed, but the branding should have remained outside," she said "Notre-Dame deserves respect as a house of God, not a showcase for luxury.”
While the grandeur of the reopening sparked debate, Arnault’s donation and LVMH’s contributions to the cathedral restoration—including 36 300-year-old oak trees for the spire—have been widely praised.
LVMH’s influence at the Paris 2024 Olympics further cemented its stellar year. The company crafted custom display cases for 5,000 medals and the Olympic torch, showcasing its artistry and precision. Berluti, another LVMH brand, designed costumes for the opening ceremony, while an Olympic-themed Vogue World fashion show, supported by the group, drew international attention during Paris Couture Week.
Tensions between Arnault and Pinault, the driving forces behind LVMH and Kering respectively, were on full display with their brands’ prominent appearances at the cathedral. This rivalry dates back decades to a bitter bidding war over Gucci in the late 1990s, which Pinault’s Kering ultimately won. Since then, their competition has extended beyond fashion into the realms of art, philanthropy and global influence.
In Notre Dame, French luxury was also championed by the French Catholic church — and was on display even in the stitch of the liturgical vestments. French fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac was called on by the church to design the cathedral’s 2,000 garments. The unorthodox designs were fun, modern — and perhaps shockingly minimalist. They ensured that even the clergy’s robes reflected high-fashion artistry, further underscoring the intersection of faith and fashion at the event.
FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron, center, and his wife Brigitte Macron arrive to attend the inaugural Mass, with the consecration of the altar, at the Notre Dame Cathedral, five-and-a-half years after a fire ravaged the Gothic masterpiece, as part of ceremonies to mark the Cathedral's reopening after its restoration, in Paris, France, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. (Sarah Meyssonnier/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Actress Salma Hayek and her husband CEO of Kering Francois-Henri Pinault sit inside Notre Dame Cathedral before France's iconic cathedral is formally reopening its doors for the first time since a devastating fire nearly destroyed the 861-year-old landmark in 2019, Saturday Dec.7, 2024 in Paris. (Ludovic Marin/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - CEO of LVMH Bernard Arnault, left, Antoine Arnault, CEO of Berluti , center right, and members of the Arnault family talk in Notre Dame Cathedral before France's iconic cathedral is formally reopening its doors for the first time since a devastating fire nearly destroyed the 861-year-old landmark in 2019, Saturday Dec.7, 2024 in Paris. (Ludovic Marin/Pool via AP, File)
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — When Nadege Anelka first came to the West African country of Benin from her home island of Martinique, a French overseas territory in the Caribbean, the 57-year-old travel agent said she had a feeling of deja vu.
“A lot of the people reminded me of my grandparents, the way they wore their headscarves, their mannerisms, their mentality,” she said.
Feeling at home in Benin, Anelka decided to settle there last July and open a travel agency. She hopes to become a citizen by taking advantage of a law passed in September that grants citizenship to those who can trace their lineage to the slave trade.
The new law is part of a broader effort by Benin to reckon with its own historical role in the slave trade.
The law is open to all over 18 who do not already hold other African citizenship and can provide proof that an ancestor was deported via the slave trade from anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Beninese authorities accept DNA tests, authenticated testimonies and family records.
Anelka used “Anchoukaj" ("Affiliation” in Antillean Creole), a website recognized by Benin to trace her heritage, proving that her ancestors were slaves in Martinique. If her application is successful, she will receive a provisional certificate of nationality valid for three years. To get citizenship, she'll be required to stay at least once in Benin during that period.
Benin is not the first country to grant citizenship to descendants of slaves. Earlier this month, Ghana naturalized 524 African Americans after the West African country’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, invited them to “come home” in 2019, as part of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in North America in 1619.
But Benin’s citizenship law carries added significance in part because of the role it played in the slave trade as one of the main points of departure.
An estimated 1.5 million slaves were deported from the Bight of Benin, a territory that includes modern-day Benin and Togo and part of modern-day Nigeria, said Ana Lucia Araujo, a professor of history at Howard University who has spent years researching Benin’s role.
The coastal town of Ouidah was one of Africa’s most active slave-trading ports in the 18th and 19th centuries. Close to a million men, women and children were captured, chained and forced onto ships there, mainly destined for what would become the United States and Brazil and the Caribbean.
Benin has struggled to resolve its legacy of complicity. For over 200 years, powerful kings captured and sold slaves to Portuguese, French and British merchants.
The kingdoms still exist today as tribal networks, and so do the groups that were raided. Rumors that President Patrice Talon is a descendant of slave merchants sparked much debate while he was running for office in 2016. Talon has never publicly addressed the rumors.
Benin has openly acknowledged its role in the slave trade, a stance not shared by many other African nations that participated. In the 1990s, Benin hosted an international conference, sponsored by UNESCO, to examine how and where slaves were sold.
And in 1999, President Mathieu Kérékou fell to his knees whiling visiting a church in Baltimore and issued an apology to African Americans for Africa’s involvement in the slave trade.
Alongside this national reckoning, “memorial tourism” centered around the legacy of the slave trade has become a key strategy of Benin’s government to attract foreigners.
Memorial sites are mostly in Ouidah. They include the “Door of No Return,” which marks the point from which many enslaved people were shipped across the Atlantic, as well as the town’s history museum.
At the “Tree of Forgetfulness,” enslaved people were said to be symbolically forced to forget their past lives.
“Memories of the slave trade are present on both sides of the Atlantic, but only one of these sides is well known,” said Sindé Cheketé, the head of Benin’s state-run tourism agency.
Nate Debos, 37, an American musician living in New Orleans, learned about Benin's citizenship law while visiting for the Porto Novo mask festival. He had never been to West Africa before, but his interest in the Vodun religion led him there.
Debos is the president of an association called New Orleans National Vodou Day. It mirrors Benin’s Vodun Day, a national holiday on Jan. 10 with a festival in Ouidah celebrating Vodun, an official religion in Benin, practiced by at least a million people in the country.
It originated in the kingdom of Dahomey — in the south of present-day Benin — and revolves around the worship of spirits and ancestors through rituals and offerings. Slavery brought Vodun to the Americas and the Caribbean, where it became Vodou, a blend with Catholicism.
“Vodou is one of the chains that connects Africa to the Americas,” said Araujo, the professor. “For enslaved Africans, it was a way of resisting slavery.”
European colonial powers and slave owners sought to suppress African cultural and religious practices. Vodun was preserved through syncretism, as African deities and spirits were merged with or disguised as Catholic saints.
“Our African ancestors were not tribal savages, they had sophisticated cultures with very noble and beautiful spiritual practices," Debos said.
He now seeks to establish more partnerships with collectives practicing Vodun in Benin, which would require him to stay in the country for longer periods. He will apply for citizenship, but not with an intention to move there permanently.
“At the end of the day, I am an American, even when I am dressed in the wonderful fabrics and suits they have in Benin,” Debos said.
Anelka, the travel agent now living in Benin, said her motivations behind getting Beninese citizenship are mostly symbolic.
“I know I will never be completely Beninese. I will always be considered a foreigner” she said. “But I am doing this for my ancestors. It’s a way to reclaim my heritage, a way of getting reparation.”
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE- A man paddles a canoe near a Voodoo sacred forest in Adjarra, Benin, on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba, File)
FILE - In this Nov. 17, 2011 file photo, a fisherman stands amidst city trash brought in by the tide, as he prepares to launch his fishing boat, in Cotonou, Benin. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2019 file photo, the flags of the nations of Benin and Togo, the west African homes of the survivors of the slave ship Clotilda, remain on display on a monument at what was the Africatown Welcome Center in Mobile, Ala. (AP Photo/Julie Bennett, File)
Nate Debos, known by his stage name NaTRILL Dizaster, left, who said he would apply for Benin citizenship, poses with Ay.Yon Michaels, right, of the rap duo Ayakashi Krewe inside an old school bus in New Orleans, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Nate Debos, known by his stage name NaTRILL Dizaster, who said he would apply for Benin citizenship, poses inside an old school bus in New Orleans, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
