French President Emmanuel Macron’s vow to reopen Notre-Dame in time for Paris’ turn as host of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games still appears to be on track after France’s Minister of Culture Rima Abdul-Malak said her office was “quite confident” in the reconstruction’s progress.

Abdul-Malak was on hand for a site inspection over the weekend alongside Phillipe Villeneuve, the chief architect of the country’s cultural monuments. The two were in Paris to inspect the recently-completed clean-up of the 859-year-old structure’s interior worship spaces, which they say represents a turning point towards the overall project’s accelerated completion.

The question is how much of the heavily-damaged cathedral will be restored and reopened to the public in time for the 2024 date set by Abdul-Malak. The controversial interior segment of the second phase of reconstruction finally began in September after lockdown-related delays and is to be followed by the replica spire’s reinstallation next month. This process will begin with the installation of scaffolding and later timber elements preceding the equally-challenging exterior restoration, whose timeline has yet to be determined by Jean-Louis Georgelin, the French military official in charge of the reconstruction. 

Total costs for the project have now soared past their original $600+ million price tag. As was first reported by Le Figaro last week, the new estimate appears to total some €846 million ($862 million). An accounting declared some €550 million ($560 million) was required for the interior restoration, with another €150 million ($152 million) being allocated in the initial phase and €146 million ($147 million) allotted to the separate exterior and spire portions. Speaking to the paper, Georgelin indicated that 340,000 individual donors have contributed to the fundraising effort thus far.