Pope Leo XIV begins a four-day visit to France on Friday, with about 600,000 people expected at Saturday’s Mass along Paris’s Champs-Élysées. Police have sealed a large area around the avenue and Place de la Concorde for the celebration.
President Emmanuel Macron will greet Leo on Friday and hold talks with him on geopolitics and artificial intelligence, but will not attend any of the Masses, largely to avoid breaching France’s strict separation of state and religion. Macron’s wife, Brigitte, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will attend the Paris Mass. Leo is also due to meet migrants in Paris and victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Lourdes.
About 80,000 young people are expected at Stade de France on Friday evening, and 150,000 have signed up for Sunday’s Mass in Lourdes. On Monday in Metz, Leo will pay tribute to Robert Schuman, a founding figure of the European Union who is a candidate for beatification. Fewer than 5% of France’s population now worships regularly, compared with 35% in 1960; adult baptisms more than doubled in five years to 10,000 in 2025.
