Record crowds in France. Firstly, for the Pope, and secondly, for a series of riots which have spread across the country, and only seem to be growing.
Last month, the papal visit seemed to garner an optimistic, almost nostalgic, quality in the French nation. The day Pope Leo XIV arrived, September 25, he was greeted by a show of armoured knights on horseback - St Joan of Arc and King St Louis IX among them. The next day, he celebrated Mass to an audience of 600,000. It was a rare occasion when the country’s staunch secularism subsided, and the deep Catholic roots of the Eldest Daughter of the Church was celebrated.
