Five years after a devastating fire gutted a world icon, Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral is just days away from reopening.

Francis President Emmanuel Macron toured the monument today, and his visit provided some first glimpses of this extraordinary restoration.

Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant went to Paris to meet some of the

expert artists and artisans whose skills have preserved Our Lady for centuries to come.

With every passing day as scaffolding is removed, the scar on the Parisian skyline heals a little more.

After 2,063 days of being outside the construction site perimeter, Parisians will finally reclaim their cathedral. It's taken five and a half

years and three quarters of a billion donated dollars for this World Heritage Phoenix to rise from the ashes.

After the fire, President Macron set a five-year deadline for the restoration of Notre Dame,

which some people thought was insufficient time. But a dedicated and skillful army of artists,

artisans and craftsmen has succeeded. And today, a week before a service of rededication,

the French president came for a final inspection.

The cathedral, as you will, rediscover is very different from the one everyone remembered.

Archaeologist Dorothe Chawi Derriere teams, identifying and cataloguing, collapsed remains,

so they could be correctly used in the reconstruction.

She's also a founder of the Artisans' Choir.

This is one of their last rehearsals before Notre Dame reopens for worship.

The Mason... worship. The masonry in particular was very dark.

It was the dust of centuries that had finally accumulated.

Me, in my memory, I really had the image of a very, very dark, very dark cathedral.

The stained glass windows had not been cleaned for a very long time as well.

There we will find a stone that is very, very blonde.

It's true that it's a cathedral of light today that we're going to rediscover,

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