Pope Leo to visit France September 25-28

Pope Leo XIV will travel to France for an official state visit from September 25 to 28, the Vatican announced on Saturday, the first such trip by a pontiff in 18 years.

The first pope from the United States, elected in May 2025, will notably travel to Paris for a visit to the headquarters of UNESCO, the United Nations culture agency, the Vatican said in a statement.

The visit will come after a trip to Spain in June, demonstrating the pope's interest in engaging with historically Catholic but increasingly secular European countries that had been largely overlooked by his predecessor, Francis.

It will be the first papal state visit to France since Benedict XVI went in September 2008.

While Francis visited France three times as pope -- to Strasbourg, Marseille and the island of Corsica -- those trips were not official state visits by the Holy See.

The president of the French Bishops' Conference (CEF), Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, had extended an invitation to Leo to visit France, one repeated by President Emmanuel Macron during his visit to the pontiff at the Vatican in April.

A French speaker, Leo had expressed on various occasions "the great esteem in which he holds our country and her spiritual history", Aveline said earlier in May.

Besides the capital, the pontiff will also travel to Lourdes, a site of pilgrimage for Christians worldwide.

The southwestern French town's important Catholic shrine welcomed Jean-Paul II in 1983 and in 2004, as well as Benedict in 2008. Each time, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered to see the pope, according to the sanctuary.