Pope Leo XIV Wraps Up France Visit With a Defense of European Unity and a Challenge to the Far Right

Pope Leo XIV concluded a four-day apostolic journey through France on September 28, 2026, with a final stop in the eastern city of Metz, where he delivered a robust defense of European integration and the values underpinning the European Union. The visit culminated in an official farewell ceremony at Metz–Nancy–Lorraine Airport in Goin, northeastern France, where the pontiff and French President Emmanuel Macron reviewed troops as part of the departure protocol.

The choice of Metz as the closing venue carried strong symbolic weight. The city is the hometown of Maurice Schumann, one of the founding fathers of present-day European federalism, making it a fitting backdrop for a papal message that embraced the EU model as a framework capable of transcending narrow nationalist divisions.

During his remarks in Metz, the head of the world's largest organized religion acknowledged Europe's Christian roots, tracing them back to Roman times, but did so while simultaneously celebrating a European project that he said rises above "us versus them" ideology. In his view, the EU embodies a rejection of the principle that "might is right" in favor of human rights and international law.

That message placed the Pope on a collision course with the continent's increasingly influential eurosceptic far right, particularly in France. The debate program "The Debate," produced by François Picard and a team of France 24 journalists, examined the schism between Leo's vision and the positions of French presidential frontrunner Marine Le Pen, along with the leader of her National Rally party, Jordan Bardella.

The timing of the visit underscored the tensions at play. A poll released the same day showed Le Pen widening her lead ahead of the 2027 presidential vote, while Bardella was simultaneously forced to deny a media report alleging he had made anti-Semitic comments in 2013. Both developments highlighted how the far right's brand of identity politics — often framed as a defense of Christian civilization — diverges sharply from the Pope's explicitly universalist and pro-European stance.

The program assembled a panel of four guests to unpack these competing visions: Elena Pompei, an ENTR journalist; Yves Sintomer, professor of political science at Paris 8 University; Christine Pedotti, director of the French Christian weekly publication "Témoignage chrétien"; and Andrea Antonio Verardi, professor of church history at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

The breadth of the panel reflected the multi-layered nature of the story. Beyond the immediate political clash with the French far right, the discussion explored the pope's broader moral authority in 2026 and the extent to which his church can credibly speak to a continent grappling with questions of identity, sovereignty, and the rise of nationalist movements. The conversation also touched on how the pope's message plays just over the border in neighboring Germany, where eurosceptic and far-right forces have likewise gained ground.

During his four-day tour, Pope Leo did not limit himself to geopolitical themes. He met privately with victims of systemic abuse within the Church, explicitly acknowledging the damage such abuse has caused. That private encounter stood in contrast to the massive public gatherings that marked his journey, where he drew huge crowds in cities across France. The contrast between the quiet reckoning with the Church's internal failures and the spectacle of popular enthusiasm became one of the defining features of the trip.

The papal visit unfolded against a backdrop of significant international news. On the same day as the Metz farewell, France 24's top stories included a live report on Pope Leo ending his France visit with a plea for Europe to foster dialogue and peace, along with coverage of hybrid warfare threats from Russia looming over the Mediterranean, the arrest and bailing of five men in the UK over a suspected bomb plot at a US-run air base, and the widening lead of Marine Le Pen in French polling.

Within France 24's Debate series, the episode fit into a broader thematic arc. It followed a September 24 episode on the Trump-Xi summit and the future of artificial intelligence, and a September 23 episode titled "Holy regulation? Pope in Paris to press case for 'disarming' AI." That earlier program indicated that the pope's engagement with contemporary policy issues extended well beyond European politics into the technological sphere.

The church history perspective offered by Verardi, a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University, promised to situate Leo's pronouncements within a longer tradition of papal engagement with European politics. Meanwhile, Sintomer's political science expertise and Pedotti's journalistic and theological background provided complementary lenses on how the pope's words might resonate — or fail to resonate — with voters attracted to nationalist platforms.

For the far right, the pope's insistence on human rights and international law as the foundation of European coexistence presents a direct ideological challenge. Le Pen and Bardella have built their appeal partly on a narrative of defending Christian heritage against perceived threats from immigration and globalization. Leo's framing undercuts that narrative by presenting Christian roots not as a justification for exclusion but as a historical foundation for a project that transcends national boundaries.

The visit also demonstrated the pope's capacity to draw public attention on a scale few other global figures can match. His crowds in France were large, and his message was delivered with the authority of an institution that, despite its internal crises, remains a major moral voice on the world stage. Whether that voice can shift the political trajectory of France or Germany in the years ahead remains an open question.

As the pontiff departed from Metz–Nancy–Lorraine Airport, the images of him reviewing troops alongside President Macron served as a reminder of the formal relationship between the Vatican and the French state. But the substance of his visit lay in the arguments he made: that Europe's Christian heritage points toward unity rather than division, and that the continent's future should be shaped by law and human rights rather than by the raw exercise of power. How that moment will be remembered, in France and beyond, is likely to depend on whether the political forces he implicitly criticized continue their ascent.