Pope Leo XIV said on a visit to France on Friday that "authentic secularity" should not exclude religion, in a country where law has for more than a century separated church and state.
"An authentic secularity, then, consists not in excluding religion from the public sphere or from education, but in striving to ensure that the state and religious institutions maintain dialogue and join forces in the service of the common good," he said.
Politicians have in recent years invoked France's brand of secularism to justify bans on religious symbols including Muslim women's attire in public spaces and schools.