These events took place on the second day of his visit to France, which aroused widespread popular enthusiasm.
Aboard the popemobile, the sovereign pontiff, smiling, blesses babies and greets the human tide of faithful, many of whom arrived hours in advance to see him heading towards the Place de la Concorde, where a vast ephemeral structure has been erected, with a white altar topped by a cross several meters high.
The religious service is due to begin at 3:00 p.m. with, over more than two kilometers, some 600,000 people expected to reach Avenue de la Grande Armée, beyond the Arc de Triomphe, who will be able to follow the one and a half hour service on giant screens.
Throughout the morning, the faithful gathered in the vast secure area, with the hope of seeing something despite the human swarm.
“I probably won’t see anything but it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that there are many of us, to participate in communion,” explains Marie-Hélène, from the Paris suburbs, near the Arc de Triomphe.
Place de la Concorde, where spectators wait while picnicking, Virginie Courtot, 51, believes that “the pope is the star!” “He speaks to an audience beyond the Catholic religion, he is the pope we need in the current era, who brings nuance and reflection,” considers the woman who came from Nanterre with her family.
“We’re going to make some noise!”
In the streets adjacent to the Champs-Élysées, while around ten metro stations were closed for the celebration, dozens of buses poured in all morning faithful from the provinces, often equipped with stools or folding chairs, ready to wait several hours for the arrival of the pope.
“The Catholics, we don’t hear them much, now we’re going to make some noise! But to announce love, peace, joy,” rejoices Sylvie Leclerc, a 51-year-old teacher, getting off her bus from Seine-Maritime.
In the middle of the crowd, before the arrival of the Pope, activists from the Catholic feminist association Magdala unfurled a banner, on which a verse from the Gospel was feminized “Blessed are those who thirst for justice”, so that women are “fully welcomed” in the Church.
Many political figures are present to attend the mass, including presidential election candidates Edouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal and Marine Le Pen, accompanied by Jordan Bardella, as well as Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, former President Nicolas Sarkozy and the presidents of the two houses of Parliament, Yaël Braun-Pivet and Gérard Larcher, according to the diocese.
Head of State Emmanuel Macron, who welcomed the Pope on Friday upon his arrival at the airport and then at the Elysée, is not present, but represented by his wife Brigitte Macron.
The first pope to come to Paris since 2008, Leo
The unprecedented visit of Leo
“Amazed” by the newly baptized –
Himself the grandson of immigrants, Leo XIV began his second day in France by visiting the diocesan association supporting migrants, Maison Bakhita. “A house which shows the whole city that it is possible to meet and live together in dignity and peace,” he declared, after hearing testimonies from Afghan and Nigerian exiles in this association located in a working-class district in the north of the capital.
“The history of the Church and of humanity (…) is not written by those who give the impression of winning by imposing themselves and occupying space, but by those who + make space +, establish peace processes, arouse trust and encourage life,” declared the sovereign pontiff, also urging “to recognize the fundamental role of women in the construction of a civilization of love”.
Since his election in May 2025, Robert Francis Prevost has regularly called for defending the dignity of exiled people and refugees, not hesitating to criticize the migration policy of American President Donald Trump.
The leader of the 1.4 billion Catholics in the world then said he was “amazed” by the growing number of newly baptized people in France, some of whom he met at the historic headquarters of the “Catho de Paris”.
