Speaking at the Élysée Palace after an hour of talks with President Emmanuel Macron, the Pope cautioned against “losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines” — as France prepares for the largest Catholic gathering in Paris in decades.
PARIS — Pope Leo XIV began a four-day visit to France on Friday with a pointed warning about artificial intelligence, telling Church and state leaders at the Élysée Palace that humanity must not be “lost amid a paradise of machines.”
The remarks followed an hour-long private meeting with President Emmanuel Macron and set the tone for a trip the Vatican hopes will rekindle faith in a country once called the “Eldest Daughter of the Church.”
A half-million expected for Saturday’s Mass
The highpoint of the journey is a solemn Mass on Saturday at the Place de la Concorde, where a permanent-style altar has been erected and a large swathe around the Champs-Élysées has been sealed off by police. More than half a million people are expected.
Macron will attend none of the Masses, a deliberate move to respect France’s strict separation of Church and state. His wife Brigitte and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will take his place at the Champs-Élysées celebration. Several candidates for next year’s presidential election are also due — Marine Le Pen, Édouard Philippe, Gabriel Attal and Bruno Retailleau.
Protocol friction, politely denied
Reports surfaced of tension between the Élysée and the Vatican’s advance team, with Macron said to be frustrated at being denied a more ceremonial visit. French officials dismissed the claims, noting it is customary to offer a visiting head of state a full menu of honours — a cavalry escort down the Champs-Élysées included — while never expecting the Pope to accept.
They did confirm one refusal: Pope Leo declined Macron’s proposal of a meeting with the artisans who rebuilt Notre-Dame, citing a packed schedule.
Paris, Lourdes, Metz
After a Popemobile ride to Notre-Dame on Friday afternoon, the Pope is joined on Friday evening by some 80,000 young people at the Stade de France. On Sunday he marks 150,000 registered pilgrims at the Pyrenean sanctuary of Lourdes, where he will also meet victims of sexual abuse by clergy. On Monday he travels to Metz in the northeast to pay tribute to Robert Schuman (1886–1963), a founding father of the European Union, a fervent Catholic, and now a candidate for beatification. A meeting with migrants is also planned in Paris.
A hollowed-out, but searching, nation
France’s relationship with Rome is long and tangled: the papacy sat in exile at Avignon in the 14th century, French armies repeatedly intervened in Italy, and Napoleon held two popes captive.
Today the country is thoroughly secularised. Fewer than half the population identifies as Catholic. Regular worship has collapsed from 35% in 1960 to under 5% today, and the priesthood has shrunk by two-thirds — from 25,000 in 1990 to fewer than 9,000.
Yet the pews may be stirring. Adult baptisms have more than doubled in five years, reaching 10,000 in 2025.
“France has indeed secularised, but there is a void where God and values used to be,” said Cardinal François Bustillo, Bishop of Ajaccio. “People are searching for something… the Pope comes here from Rome, bringing a reminder to people of their own roots. It was John-Paul II who awoke the East. Now Leo XIV will awake the West.”
A personal thread: born Robert Prevost in Chicago in 1955, the Pope carries a French name by inheritance — his paternal grandmother was born in Le Havre, Normandy, in 1894.
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