Pope Leo XIV set for four-day visit to France

Pope Leo XIV flies to France today for the Vatican's first state visit in 18 years.

Church bells around the nation are set to ring for seven minutes when the first American pontiff, whose paternal grandmother was born in France, lands outside Paris for a four-day trip.

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte will greet the 71-year-old on the tarmac, as he marks the first official trip by a head of the Vatican since Pope Benedict XVI in September 2008.

Seven months ahead of elections to replace Mr Macron, the pope is expected to touch on topics ranging from the dangers of artificial intelligence and the migration crisis to clerical sexual abuse and peace in Europe.

The Catholic Church leader will visit the presidential palace before a speech expected to focus on the need to regulate AI at UNESCO headquarters in the afternoon.

"Human dignity, peace, education and responsibility in the face of new technologies will likely occupy an important place in his address," said Monsignor Roberto Campisi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the UN's culture agency.

A million people are expected at various events being held in Paris for the first two days of his trip.

In the afternoon, Pope Leo will wave to the crowds on a 2.5km popemobile drive to the Notre-Dame cathedral in central Paris, becoming the first pope to inspect renovations following a fire in 2019.

His predecessor Pope Francis - who visited France three times but never officially - did not attend the Gothic masterpiece's reopening in late 2024, when then president-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk were among the guests.

Later in the day he will attend a prayer and hymns ceremony with an expected 80,000 attendees, aged from 17 to 35, in a stadium in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.

A relic, believed to be the tunic Jesus wore during the Passion, will be transported out of the nearby Saint-Denis Cathedral to the stadium for the occasion.

Only around five percent of France's 69 million residents regularly attend Catholic church, a survey last year found, in a deeply secular country that has enshrined the right to abortion in the constitution and approved assisted dying for some patients.

But while the number of infant christenings has dwindled in recent years, adult baptisms are on the rise, with thousands choosing to embrace the faith.

Pope Leo will lead a Mass tomorrow at the Place de la Concorde and adjoining Champs-Élysées, before heading to Lourdes in southwestern France.

In Lourdes, he will speak privately on Sunday with seven victims of clerical sex abuse.

A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 people as minors in France over the span of 70 years.

In recent years, further accusations have emerged against charity icon Abbe Pierre and workers at a Catholic boarding school near Lourdes.

For the last leg of his trip on Monday, Pope Leo is expected to make a speech about peace in Europe in the northeastern city of Metz near the German border.

EU heads of state and government have been invited to attend, a French presidential source has said.