Emmanuel Macron will not attend a single Mass during Pope Leo XIV’s four-day visit to France, which starts this Friday. That includes Saturday’s giant open-air Mass on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, where nearly 600,000 people are expected.
Instead, the French president will be represented by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and by his wife, Brigitte Macron.
Part of the reason is laïcité (secularism), France’s strict separation of church and state. In 2023, Macron attended Pope Francis’s Mass in Marseille, and critics said a French president had no place at a religious service. This time, he is keeping his distance.
But French media also report tensions between Paris and the Vatican over this visit. Macron wanted the pope to meet the workers who rebuilt Notre-Dame after the 2019 fire. That meeting never happened. Both sides say it was a scheduling issue and insist there is no conflict.
Macron won’t disappear from the visit entirely. He will welcome Pope Leo XIV at Orly airport on Friday and host him at the Élysée Palace for a private meeting. On Monday, he will join the pope in Metz, in eastern France, where both men will give speeches on peace and European unity.
The pope’s program is packed. He will lead evening prayers inside the rebuilt Notre-Dame on Friday, celebrate Mass at the Concorde on Saturday, and travel to Lourdes, one of the most famous Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world, on Sunday.
It’s the first visit to France for the Chicago-born pope. And it’s the first papal visit to Paris since Benedict XVI in 2008.