Pope Leo XIV led an open-air Mass at Place de la Concorde in Paris on Saturday, attended by an estimated 700,000 people according to the Vatican, after travelling along the Champs-Élysées in the Popemobile amid crowds waving French and Vatican flags and chanting greetings to him, on the second day of the first official papal visit to France in 18 years.
Attendance exceeds Mass registration figures
Actual attendance exceeded the number of people who had registered in advance for the Mass by around 100,000. The Archdiocese of Paris had announced that more than 600,000 people had registered before registration closed on 16 September, and opened an additional area at Place de l'Étoile and Avenue de la Grande Armée to accommodate the influx of participants.
The procession of the 71-year-old American Pope set off shortly after 2pm from the area around Place de l'Étoile and travelled nearly two kilometres from the Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Concorde. The Pope stood smiling inside his car, waving to those present, and stopped several times to bless children lifted up by their parents from among the crowds, while worshippers had lined up behind barriers since dawn in the hope of seeing him.
Participants chanted slogans including “Leo, Leo” and “Long live the Pope”, and waved the yellow and white flags of the Vatican, alongside French flags and flags representing different regions. Parents arrived with pushchairs, while others carried their children on their shoulders to watch the procession pass.
Pope urges spread of faith and love
In his homily, the Pope thanked God for giving him the opportunity to visit France as part of a fast-paced four-day tour covering three cities, and asked those present not to keep their faith to themselves. He said: “Let it overflow, so that those you meet may be refreshed and their thirst quenched,” adding: “From this beautiful city of Paris, I fervently pray that the living waters of the Holy Spirit may flow throughout France.”
Leo XIV said material possessions could not give people true happiness, saying: “God alone can fill the emptiness within us.” His message formed part of the visit’s effort to strengthen the presence and teachings of Catholicism and revive religious fervour in France.
Sister Marie-Élisabeth, 44, who came from Burgundy, said the event offered Christians a way to say “loudly and proudly that they are here”. Teacher Sylvie Leclerc, 51, said Catholics were not often heard, adding: “But now we are going to make some noise, to proclaim love, peace and joy.”
Extensive security deployment around Place de la Concorde
The authorities imposed a security perimeter extending around 2.2 kilometres from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe and beyond, and closed roads in central Paris. Helicopters flew over the area, and snipers were deployed on the roofs of buildings, including the roof of the National Assembly, around 400 metres from the square. Nearly 10 metro stations were also closed.
The security cordon came into force from 10pm on Friday until 8pm on Saturday. Estimates indicated that around 14,500 police, gendarmes, military personnel and firefighters took part in securing the event, while another account said that nearly 12,000 police, gendarmes and military personnel had been mobilised, excluding firefighters from that figure.
Politicians attend Mass, while Macron is absent
Several politicians were present at Place de la Concorde, seven months before the presidential election, including Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella of the National Rally, Gabriel Attal and Édouard Philippe of the centrist bloc, Bruno Retailleau of the Republicans, and Éric Zemmour accompanied by Sarah Knafo.
Former prime ministers Michel Barnier and François Fillon also attended, while National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet had announced that she would take part. President Emmanuel Macron did not attend the Mass after the Élysée Palace announced on 22 September that he would not take part in the religious events included in the visit, and that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and the President’s wife, Brigitte Macron, would represent him.
Macron’s attendance at Pope Francis’s Mass at the Vélodrome stadium in Marseille in 2023 drew criticism from the left, based on the principle of secularism. The choice of Place de la Concorde prompted objections from supporters of a strict separation between religion and the state, given the site’s symbolism in the French Republic and the fact that it was where King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were guillotined during the French Revolution.
The Mouv'Enfant association went to the Paris administrative court in late August, seeking to have the authorisation granted for the Mass cancelled and suspended. The organisers responded that central Paris had no other site capable of accommodating a crowd of this size.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said at the beginning of September that secularism guaranteed freedom to use public space as long as the event was declared and did not disturb public order. For comparison, a Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI in the Invalides area attracted around 240,000 people during his visit to Paris in 2008.
The Mass at Place de la Concorde followed a gathering of around 300,000 people on Friday along the route of the Popemobile between Rue de Montparnasse and Boulevard Saint-Michel, according to an estimate by the local authorities relayed by the Vatican. That evening, 80,000 young people took part in a religious event at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, while the Church said it had rejected a similar number of requests because no additional places were available.
The Pope is scheduled to leave Paris from Orly Airport on a plane provided by Air France and travel to Lourdes, where he will pray at the shrine’s grotto in the evening and meet privately with victims of sexual abuse committed within the Church.
On Monday, he will visit the city of Metz to deliver a speech in English on Europe, peace and unity.
