Pope Leo XIV in Paris: Huge Crowds, State Meetings and What's Next
Hundreds of thousands of people greeted Pope Leo XIV in central Paris on Saturday 26 September 2026 ahead of an open-air Mass expected to draw more than half a million people. BBC
Leo traveled down the Champs-Elysees in the popemobile beneath the Arc de Triomphe, waving to crowds and stopping to bless several babies. A special altar was built on the Place de la Concorde for the ceremony, scheduled for 15:00 on Saturday. France's Bishops' Conference expects more than 1 million people to take part across the four-day visit, which began on 25 September. AP
The trip is the first formal visit by a pope to France in nearly 20 years. Reuters It combines pastoral moments, meaning religious duties, with state protocol, meaning official rules for receiving a head of state. President Emmanuel Macron met Leo for an hour of talks on Friday. Macron will not attend any of the Masses during the visit. Brigitte Macron and Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu will attend the Champs-Elysees Mass.
They were joined at the Place de la Concorde by figures from across the political spectrum. Marine Le Pen and Bruno Retailleau were pictured ahead of the Mass. Edouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal were due to attend. Former Prime Minister Francois Fillon was also seen at the square.
On Saturday morning Leo visited the Maison Bakhita centre for social support and integration, meeting migrants and refugees. The Vatican programme listed the visit for 09:00 on 26 September. During that stop he met associations including Aux captifs la liberation and A Bras Ouverts. The day's itinerary then moved to the Paris-Lourdes stage, according to the Vatican Press Office programme for the Apostolic Journey.
At the start of the visit on Friday, Leo warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Speaking at the Elysee Palace, he cautioned against losing humanity amid a paradise of machines.
The itinerary extends beyond the capital. Organizers say 150,000 people signed up to attend Mass in Lourdes on Sunday. On Monday Leo will visit Metz in northeast France to pay tribute to Robert Schuman. Schuman (1886-1963) was a founding father of the European Union and a fervent Catholic candidate for beatification, a step toward sainthood.
On 25 September Leo met young people and led prayer at the Stade de France, and celebrated vespers, an evening prayer service, at Notre-Dame de Paris in the late afternoon with priests, deacons, consecrated persons such as nuns and monks, and seminarians from across France. On 26 September he met members of the provincial synodal assembly, a church discussion meeting including catechumens and neophytes, meaning people preparing to join the Church and newly baptized members, at the Institut catholique de Paris, and prayed before figures of saints or blesseds in the former Carmes convent.
A popemobile route on 25 September ran from Notre-Dame des Champs on Boulevard du Montparnasse via Boulevard Saint-Michel, with viewing spots opening at 12:00. On 24 September Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich celebrated a Mass to bless volunteers for the visit. Most Paris parishes are offering broadcasts of the vigil and Mass, notably for elderly, reduced-mobility and disabled people or those who cannot tolerate crowds.
Leo was born in Chicago in 1955 as Robert Prevost. His paternal grandmother was born in Le Havre in Normandy in 1894. That ancestry received attention in French coverage of the visit.
The broader context here is protocol as much as piety. A French president receives a pope at the Elysee, holds an extended private conversation, then stays away from the liturgy while his wife, his prime minister and his rivals take visible places in the congregation. For specialists in Vatican diplomacy, the arrangement preserves the formal distinction between state welcome and religious act while allowing every major political family to be seen at Concorde. The choices of Lourdes and Metz extend the logic. One is the country's main pilgrimage site. The other ties Catholic social thought to the postwar European project through Schuman. The AI language at the Elysee gives the Holy See a point of entry into a French and European regulatory debate without committing Paris to anything. Whether that sequence produces working follow-up between French ministries and Vatican departments will depend on what was discussed in the hour behind closed doors on Friday.
