Il Nuovo Postiglione - Pope to hold giant mass on Champs-Elysees

The leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics will lead the faithful in prayer from 3:00 pm (1300 GMT), on the second day of the first official papal visit to the European nation in 18 years.

It will be a new public appearance after an estimated 300,000 people came out to see the pontiff as he waved to the crowds from his popemobile on Friday afternoon on the way to the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The first US pontiff is visiting France on a four-day trip as the European nation gears up for elections next year to replace centrist President Emmanuel Macron, with the anti-immigration far right eyeing its best chance at the top job.

The French president will not attend Saturday's giant mass, but several presidential hopefuls, including far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Edouard Philippe, have confirmed their attendance.

Before the mass, the pope is on Saturday morning to meet six migrants at Maison Bakhita, an association set up in response to his predecessor Pope Francis calling for help welcoming and protecting foreigners.

The women and men he will meet, of Christian and Muslim faith, will hail from Algeria, Belarus, Iraq and the Ivory Coast, it has said, calling it a "message" in the run-up to elections.

- AI warning -

After arriving in France, Pope Leo stressed the need for ethics to avoid an AI-driven "paradise of machines" and, as war rages in Ukraine for a fifth year, urged France to remain a "tireless champion of peace".

On Friday night, he told young adults at a stadium outside the French capital that they were the "saints of France" and that the Church needed them.

In a deeply secular country, only around five percent of France's 69 million residents go to Catholic church services regularly, a survey found last year.

But while the number of infants getting baptised has dwindled in recent years, more teenagers and adults are taking the plunge.

After the mass in Paris, Pope Leo will head to Lourdes, a town in southwestern France where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared in a grotto in 1858 to a peasant girl.

In Lourdes, he will speak 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 seven decades.

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 Metz, on Monday, Leo is expected to make a speech about peace in Europe.

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T.Cusumano--INP