Huge crowds greet Pope in Paris for open-air Mass

Hundreds of thousands of people have greeted Pope Leo XIV in the centre of Paris for a giant open-air Mass.

Crowds cheered as the pontiff moved down the Champs-Élysées Avenue beneath the Arc de Triomphe, waving to crowds from his popemobile.

The head of the Catholic Church blessed several babies as he stopped at different stages along the avenue as chants of “Leo, Leo” rang out.

More than half a million people are expected to attend the event in the heart of the French capital on Saturday and a special altar has been built on the Place de la Concorde for the ceremony.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who met Leo for an hour of talks on Friday, will not be at any of the Pope’s Masses during his four-day visit to France, largely to avoid breaching France’s strict separation of state and religion.

But the Champs-Élysées Mass will be attended by Macron’s wife Brigitte and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

Several candidates for next year’s presidential election are also expected to attend.

Marine Le Pen of the hard-right National Rally party and conservative Bruno Retailleau were both pictured at the Place de la Concorde ahead of the event, while centrists Edouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal are also due to be there.

Mayor of Le Havre and former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and former Prime Minister Francois Fillon were both also seen at the Place de la Concorde.

Earlier on Saturday, the Pope met migrants as he visited the Maison Bakhita centre, an association supporting refugees, and praised the organisation for inviting “us to see those who are invisible”.

During the visit Leo said it was “possible to encounter one another and to live together in dignity and peace”.

He also stressed the “the fundamental role of women in building a civilisation of love”.

The Pope also issued a warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) at the start of his visit to France on Friday.

Leo cautioned against “losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines” in wide-ranging remarks to Church and state officials at the Élysée Palace.

Large crowds are expected throughout the pontiff’s trip, which the Church believes reflects a growing spirituality among the French and other Europeans.

On Sunday, 150,000 have signed up to attend mass in the Pyrenean sanctuary of Lourdes.

The Pope will be in Metz, in northeast France, on Monday where he will pay tribute to Robert Schuman (1886-1963), a founding father of the European Union and a fervent Catholic who is today a candidate for beatification.

Born in Chicago in 1955, Pope Leo XIV was originally called Robert Prevost – a French name.

His paternal grandmother was born in Le Havre in Normandy in 1894. When she married in the US many years later, she and her Italian husband took the name Prevost, which had been her mother’s maiden name.