Pope Leo XIV begins his historic visit to France with a walkabout in Paris

A historic day. Pope Leo

Standing in his popemobile during a stroll under the Parisian sun, Léon XIV was able to measure, on Friday morning as he left Orly airport, the enthusiasm aroused by his first visit to France. “Look, it’s the Pope, it’s crazy!”, we heard in a crowd which numbered 300,000 people, according to the Vatican, along the 2.5 km route to Notre-Dame.

Skip the ad

After walking the last few meters, Leo He celebrated vespers there for an audience of clergy, deacons and seminarians. “It’s very moving, after the vicissitudes that the cathedral has experienced,” Father Jocelyn Petitfils, parish priest in Bondy (Seine-Saint-Denis), told AFP.

Crowd bath

During his stroll, through streets decorated with yellow and white, the colors of the Vatican, the telephones were out so as not to miss the passage of the popemobile. “We saw it very well even if it passed very quickly,” reacted Léa Revel, a 25-year-old nurse. Not far from the Luxembourg Gardens, Leo

Before this crowd bath, the first morning of the sovereign pontiff - for whom the church bells of France rang for seven minutes upon his arrival - was marked by offensive remarks during official sequences. At the Élysée, welcomed by the Macron couple, Léon XIV spoke frankly about secularism, the dangers of artificial intelligence and the end of life. The pope notably denounced “genetic manipulation”, “surrogacy”, “purchasing organs” and “the offer of a planned death”, which he presented as “drifts” risking “diverting science and technology into lucrative businesses”.

At UNESCO, Leo This visit to France mobilizes draconian security, with telling figures: 17,000 volunteers, 15,000 police officers and gendarmes, 2,500 accredited journalists and a budget of 27 million euros. Saturday will be marked by the high mass organized on the Champs-Élysées where 600,000 people are expected.