The China Mail - Pope heads to France on first state visit in 18 years

Church bells around the nation are set to ring for seven minutes when the first US pontiff, whose paternal grandmother was born in France, lands outside Paris at 10:00 am (0800 GMT) for a four-day trip.

President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte will be on the tarmac to greet the 71-year-old pope, 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 Macron, in which the far right is eyeing power, 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 leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics will visit the presidential palace on Friday morning, 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," Monsignor Roberto Campisi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the UN's culture agency, told AFP.

- 'To be near him' -

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

Later on Friday afternoon, Leo is to wave to the crowds on a 2.5-kilometre (1.5-mile) popemobile ride to the Notre Dame cathedral in central Paris, where he will be the first pope to inspect renovations following a devastating 2019 fire.

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.

Carmen Quintana, a 71-year-old Peruvian retired journalist, said she would be among the crowd as the pope headed to the cathedral.

"We're very happy to be able to be near him," she said of the pontiff, who spent two decades as a missionary in Peru and also holds Peruvian nationality.

Last on his agenda for the day will be a mass prayer and hymns with 80,000 young believers aged 17 to 35 in stadium in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.

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

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

- Two more stops -

On his second day in Paris, Leo will lead a giant mass on Saturday on the Place de la Concorde and adjoining Champs Elysees.

He will then head to Lourdes, a town 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.

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 in the northeastern city of Metz near the German border, on Monday, Leo is expected to make a speech about peace in Europe, as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine grinds on in its fifth year.

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

M.Zhou--ThChM