Pope Francis’s complex relationship with France

For the third time, Pope Francis is preparing a trip to France. After visiting the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2014 and taking part in the Rencontres Méditerranéennes in Marseille in September 2023, he will head for Ajaccio, Corsica, on Sunday, December 15. As with his previous trips, the Pontiff is not making an official state visit, but will be taking part in a conference on popular religiosity − the Vatican press release, issued on November 23, didn’t even mention France.

This visit, just one week after the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris, which he refused to attend − despite multiple invitations sent by the Elysée as well as the diocese − is obviously not going unnoticed. As The World revealed in November, the pope’s agenda annoyed the Elysée and triggered an incensed phone call from Emmanuel Macron’s teams to the archbishop of Ajaccio, Cardinal François-Xavier Bustillo, who had initiated the conference.

The Holy See is reluctant to offer an explanation for the refusal to go to Paris. “The trip to Corsica is in line with other trips to Europe, which have always favored smaller countries and more frontier locations,” said a senior Vatican source, who wishes to remain anonymous. “Corsica is part of France, but it’s also an island in the Mediterranean, that great basin that is fast becoming a tomb for so many migrants. I see a link with the trip to Marseille, but none with Paris. This trip to Corsica is totally independent.”

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