PARIS (AFP) — Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Paris Friday for a four-day visit to a country facing a freefall in the number of churchgoers despite its deep Christian heritage.
"I love France, France's great culture, French art," he told reporters on board the plane bringing him to Paris's Orly airport where he was set to be personally greeted by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni.
The leader of the world's one billion Roman Catholics was set to head to the Elysee palace for talks with Sarkozy, who caused a stir when he last year called for "positive secularism" that would allow space for religion in public life.
While Catholicism remains by far France's number one religion, the nation is also home to large Muslim and Jewish communities and has staunchly upheld a 1905 cornerstone law that enshrines the separation of Church and State.
Breaking a taboo in French politics, Sarkozy presented his concept of "positive secularism" during a visit to the Vatican in December, saying "religions should not be considered a danger, but an asset."
France can uphold its Christian roots without compromising its commitment to secularism, said Sarkozy, a twice-divorced lapsed Catholic.
The Vatican has welcomed Sarkozy's call for religion to be more than a strictly private affair in France, but several groups -- mostly unions and leftists -- are planning protests.
Benedict is due to make a statement following his meeting with Sarkozy and deliver a keynote address on the role of religion in society later in the day that will set the tone for the visit.
After leading services at an open-air mass in central Paris Saturday, the pope flies to Lourdes in southwest France for commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the Vatican-recognized apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a peasant girl.
More than 200,000 people are expected to descend on the town where Bernadette Soubirous is said to have seen the mother of Jesus Christ 18 times over a period of a few months in 1858.
A fluent French speaker, Benedict said in a message earlier this week that he was coming to France as a "messenger of peace and fraternity".
The four-day visit to France will be Benedict's first since his election in 2005 following the death of John Paul II and his 10th trip abroad after Australia in July.
Known as the Catholic Church's "eldest daughter" since Frankish king Clovis converted in the fifth century, France is home to 35 million baptised Catholics, although polls show few feel a strong sense of belonging to the Church.
A survey published last year showed 51 percent of the French consider themselves Catholic, down from 80 percent in the early 1990s.
Of those, only 10 percent attend mass regularly, the survey in Le Monde des Religions magazine showed.
"Talking to a weakened Church on secular ground" is how Le Monde newspaper described the papal visit.
The pope wraps up his trip Monday with a mass for the sick in Lourdes that the Vatican has portrayed as an opportunity for Benedict to shed his reputation as a cold theologian and show his compassionate side.
Some 9,200 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilised to ensure security during the visit.
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