Pope Leo XIV to visit France for four-day trip

Pope Leo XIV begins a four-day visit to France on Friday, with a major event being a large Mass in central Paris expected to draw more than half a million attendees.

For Saturday's Mass, an altar has been constructed on the Place de la Concorde, and a significant area around the Champs-Élysées has been closed off by police.

President Emmanuel Macron will greet the Pope at Orly airport and hold discussions with him at the Élysée Palace on geopolitical and AI-related topics.

Macron will not attend any of the Pope's Masses, as per France's strict separation of state and religion. Instead, his wife Brigitte and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will attend the Champs-Élysées Mass.

Several presidential candidates, including Marine Le Pen and Edouard Philippe, are also expected to attend the events.

The Pope will ride in a Popemobile through crowds to Notre-Dame cathedral on Friday afternoon, followed by a gathering of 80,000 young people at the Stade de France in the evening.

In Metz on Monday, the Pope will honor Robert Schuman, a founding father of the EU and a Catholic candidate for beatification.

The Pope will also meet with a group of migrants in Paris and victims of clergy sexual abuse in Lourdes.

The visit reflects growing interest in religious tradition in France, despite a decline in regular church attendance over the past decades.