Pope Leo XIV Urges France to Embrace Dialogue and Diversity

PARIS — Pope Leo XIV urged France to embrace dialogue and diversity Friday, in a veiled swipe at populists as he arrived in Paris for a four-day visit.

His appeal came seven months before France’s presidential election, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen leading opinion polls for the National Rally and traditional parties struggling to hold voters after nearly a decade of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

“A truly free society” prevents “authoritarian tendencies,” the pope said in a speech delivered alongside President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace.

The pope named no politician or party. But his defense of diversity and religious freedom lands as Le Pen’s National Rally campaigns against immigration ahead of a presidential election she hopes to win for the first time.

“This dialogue is all the more urgent in the context of present-day France, where the people of differing cultural and religious backgrounds are called to live together,” the pontiff continued.

Standing in front of French government members and church dignitaries, the pope also argued against pushing religion out of public life, weeks after the National Rally said it was in favor of banning the Muslim headscarf. “Righteous secularism doesn’t mean excluding religion from public spaces,” he said.

Macron said the pope brought “hope” to France and praised his work on artificial intelligence and human dignity.

The papal visit will take Leo from the Élysée to UNESCO, Notre-Dame Cathedral and a youth vigil at the Stade de France. He will celebrate Mass on Saturday, expected to gather 600,000 people on the Champs-Elysées in Paris.

French politics have become deeply polarized in recent years, with the far-right National Rally and the far-left France Unbowed gaining popularity, just as traditional parties struggle to attract voters after a decade of Macron’s presidency.

According to Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, the pontiff will not offer voting instructions while in France nor criticize those who want to vote for Le Pen.

Those attracted to nationalism, he said, often have legitimate concerns about identity and “the fear of losing it” but have been “offered the wrong answer.”

“The pope will not tell the French to be less French,” said Spadaro in an interview with POLITICO ahead of the visit. “Roots are a good thing. The trouble begins when roots are used as walls.”