France gears up for first official pope visit in 18 years

A giant white canopy has appeared in central Paris with just days to go before Pope Leo XIV arrives for the first state visit to France by a pontiff since 2008.

The makeshift altar will host the head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics as he holds a giant open-air mass on the Place de la Concorde and adjoining Champs-Elysees this weekend.

The event is just one on a busy agenda for the first US pontiff, whose paternal grandmother was born in France, as he makes a four-day visit from Friday to the historically Catholic but increasingly non-religious nation.

Leo will address a wide range of thorny issues during his trip, ranging from clerical sexual abuse and the dangers of artificial intelligence to the migration crisis and peace in Europe.

Only around five percent of France's 69 million residents go to Catholic church regularly, 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 infant christenings have dwindled in recent years, adult baptisms are on the rise, with thousands choosing to embrace the faith.

"For the past 40 to 50 years, France has essentially been a kind of advanced laboratory for what is happening to Catholicism in Western -- or at least European -- democracies," Francois Mabille, director of the Geopolitical Observatory of Religion, told AFP.

"That shift from a Catholicism passed down through generations to one based on personal commitment is probably something that interests the pope," he said.

Pope John Paul II travelled to France eight times between 1980 and 2004, while Pope Benedict XVI officially visited once in September 2008.

Pope Francis made three visits -- to Strasbourg, Marseille and the island of Corsica -- but none were state trips.

On Friday, President Emmanuel Macron will greet the pope at the Elysee palace after meeting him earlier this year at the Vatican.

Leo comes to France as the eurozone's second-largest economy gears up for presidential elections next year to replace Macron, with the far right eyeing its best chance yet at seizing power.

The pope will then head to the UNESCO headquarters, where it is thought he will speak about artificial intelligence, after earlier this year issuing a call to "disarm" AI to "prevent it from dominating humanity".

A short popemobile drive away, he will attend a ceremony at Notre Dame, the storied cathedral ravaged by a fire in 2019.

Pope Francis had declined an invitation to its reopening in late 2024, when high-profile guests included then US president-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.

In the evening, Leo will pray with tens of thousands of young Catholics aged 17 to 35 in a stadium outside Paris.

On Saturday, he is to meet migrants before holding the giant afternoon mass from Place de la Concorde. Around 600,000 people have already signed up.

On Sunday, the pope will be in Lourdes, a town at the foot of the Pyrenees in southwestern France, where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared in a grotto in 1858 to a poor peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous.

Leo is to hold Sunday mass in a field near the grotto, which has become a pilgrimage site for Christians worldwide seeking healing.

But he will also speak privately with seven victims of clerical sex abuse, including a now 80-year-old former student of a nearby Catholic boarding school rocked in recent years by allegations of mass physical and sexual abuse.

For the last leg of his trip, on Monday, Leo will celebrate mass in the northeastern city of Metz near the German border, a rare part of France where some priests are still on the state payroll.

At a time of strained transatlantic ties and as Russia's invasion of Ukraine grinds on in its fifth year, Leo is expected to make a speech about peace in Europe. EU heads of state and government have been invited to attend, a French presidential source has said.

The pope will also meet representatives of the country's main faiths -- Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Orthodox Christian and Buddhist -- to sign a peace declaration.