Pope Leo XIV Begins Four-Day France Visit, Hundreds of Thousands Expected in Paris

Pope Leo XIV begins a four-day visit to France on Friday, with the highlight being a large open-air Mass in central Paris on Saturday afternoon. An altar has been erected on the Place de la Concorde, and police have sealed off a wide area around the Champs-Élysées to accommodate roughly 600,000 Catholic worshippers expected to fill the avenue up to the Arc de Triomphe and beyond.

Large crowds are anticipated at other points on the papal itinerary as well, which the Church attributes to a growing spiritual interest among French and other Europeans.

Political dimension

President Emmanuel Macron will welcome the Pope at Orly airport on Friday morning and hold talks with him at the Élysée Palace on geopolitics and artificial intelligence, later joining him for a speech in Metz. However, Macron will not attend any of the Pope's Masses, in keeping with France's strict separation of church and state. His wife Brigitte and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will attend the Champs-Élysées Mass instead, alongside several candidates for next year's presidential election, including Marine Le Pen, Édouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal and Bruno Retailleau.

There were reports of friction between Macron and the Vatican team over arrangements, though Élysée officials dismissed this, saying it is customary to offer visiting heads of state ceremonial options that are not necessarily expected to be accepted. The Pope also declined Macron's proposal to meet artisans who helped restore the fire-damaged Notre-Dame cathedral, citing a packed schedule.

A packed itinerary

After a Popemobile ride to Notre-Dame on Friday, the Pope will meet 80,000 young people that evening at the Stade de France. On Sunday, 150,000 people have registered to attend Mass at the Pyrenean shrine of Lourdes. On Monday, he travels to Metz to honour Robert Schuman, a founding figure of the European Union who is a candidate for beatification. In Paris, the Pope will also meet migrants, and in Lourdes he will meet victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

Born in Chicago in 1955 as Robert Prevost, Pope Leo XIV has French roots through a paternal grandmother born in Le Havre. While regular church attendance in France has fallen from 35% of the population in 1960 to under 5% today, recent years have shown signs of renewed interest in faith, with adult baptisms more than doubling over five years to reach 10,000 in 2025.