“The Republic is secular; France is Christian”—a phrase that sounds even more definitive in French: “La République est laïque, la France est chrétienne”—is frequently attributed to Charles de Gaulle, the very Catholic founder of the Fifth Republic. It is very much a phrase that can also be attributed to the French in 2026 as well—that is, if Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Paris is any indication.

His welcome was, quite literally, spectacular: The sight of hundreds of thousands of French lining the Champs-Elysée to greet the white-clad leader of the Catholic Church, calmly smiling as he waved from his “Popemobile,” was a spectacle as momentous as that of, well, de Gaulle calmly striding down the same avenue on Aug. 26, 1944, to attend the Te Deum, a celebratory hymn, at Notre Dame.

“The Republic is secular; France is Christian”—a phrase that sounds even more definitive in French: “La République est laïque, la France est chrétienne”—is frequently attributed to Charles de Gaulle, the very Catholic founder of the Fifth Republic. It is very much a phrase that can also be attributed to the French in 2026 as well—that is, if Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Paris is any indication.

His welcome was, quite literally, spectacular: The sight of hundreds of thousands of French lining the Champs-Elysée to greet the white-clad leader of the Catholic Church, calmly smiling as he waved from his “Popemobile,” was a spectacle as momentous as that of, well, de Gaulle calmly striding down the same avenue on Aug. 26, 1944, to attend the Te Deum, a celebratory hymn, at Notre Dame.

Joining the crowds greeting Leo were several former government ministers vying to become France’s next president following next spring’s election. They included former centrist Prime Ministers Gabriel Attal and Édouard Philippe, former Gaullist Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, and former archconservative Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. In addition, there were the extreme-right National Rally’s Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, neither of whom have ever served in government.

Yet, they are dead set on breaking this losing streak—this marks Le Pen’s fourth attempt to win the keys to the Élysée Palace—which is why she and Bardella, her likely prime minister, participated in an institutional Catholic event of the sort that the party’s founder—her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen—would never have entertained attending.

That Le Pen nevertheless felt compelled to pay respects to the........

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