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Pope Leo XIV began a four-day visit to France on Friday, with hundreds of thousands of people expected to attend a major Mass in central Paris. The visit will also take him to Lourdes and Metz.
According to AFP, around 600,000 Catholic faithful are expected to gather along the Champs-Élysées and near the Arc de Triomphe for Saturday afternoon’s celebration. An altar has been erected on the Place de la Concorde, while police have closed off a large area around the avenue.
Pope’s programme in Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron is due to welcome the pope at Orly airport before holding talks with him at the Élysée Palace on geopolitical issues and artificial intelligence. Macron and Pope Leo will also deliver a speech in Metz.
Macron will not attend any of the pope’s Masses, in keeping with France’s strict separation of state and religion. His wife, Brigitte Macron, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu are expected to attend the Mass on the Champs-Élysées.
Several potential candidates in next year’s presidential election are also due to be present, including Marine Le Pen, Edouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal and Bruno Retailleau.
Reports of tensions between Macron’s office and the Vatican delegation over the arrangements for the visit were rejected by Élysée officials. They said a visiting head of state is normally offered a range of ceremonial events, although the pope was not expected to accept all of them.
The Vatican also declined Macron’s proposal for Pope Leo to meet artisans involved in rebuilding Notre-Dame cathedral after the fire, citing a busy schedule.
Visits to Lourdes and Metz
After travelling through Paris in the popemobile and visiting Notre-Dame on Friday afternoon, Pope Leo is scheduled to meet about 80,000 young people at the Stade de France.
On Sunday, about 150,000 people are expected to attend Mass at the sanctuary in Lourdes. The pope will also meet victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy.
On Monday, he will travel to Metz in northeastern France to pay tribute to Robert Schuman, one of the founders of the European Union and a devout Catholic who is being considered for beatification. The pope is also scheduled to meet migrants in Paris.
France’s changing religious landscape
Born in Chicago in 1955 as Robert Prevost, Pope Leo XIV has French family ties through his paternal grandmother, who was born in Le Havre in 1894.
France has a long and complex relationship with the Catholic Church. The papacy was based in Avignon during the 14th century, while French armies later intervened periodically in Italian politics, when popes also ruled as secular leaders.
Although recent popes have visited France, including John Paul II and Pope Francis, France has become increasingly secular. Fewer than half of the population now identifies as Catholic, while regular worship has fallen from 35% of the population in 1960 to less than 5% today.
The number of priests has also declined from 25,000 in 1990 to fewer than 9,000. However, adult baptisms have more than doubled over the past five years, reaching 10,000 in 2025.
“France has indeed secularised, but there is a void where God and values used to be,” Cardinal François Bustillo, Bishop of Ajaccio, said.
“People are searching for something,” he added, saying the pope’s visit could remind people of their religious roots.
