Macron n’assistera à aucune messe de Léon XIV : ce que dit vraiment ce choix
Laïcité, protocole et précédent de 2023 🇬🇧 English summary President Emmanuel Macron will not attend any of the Masses celebrated by Pope Leo XIV during his apostolic journey to France from 25 to 28 September 2026. The Élysée has not provided a detailed public explanation for this decision. Macron will nevertheless receive the Pope officially and will be represented at the large Paris Mass by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, while Brigitte Macron will also attend. The decision contrasts with Macron’s presence at Pope Francis’ Mass in Marseille in 2023, which had provoked a debate about French secularism. Yet French presidential precedent is mixed: Valéry Giscard d’Estaing attended a papal Mass in 1980, while Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy did not attend the principal Masses during subsequent papal visits. The episode therefore says less about a fixed rule of laïcité than about the delicate distinction between presidential representation, personal presence and religious wor...