Pope Leo XIV has told French President Emmanuel Macron that protecting human life underpins every other right, in a speech at the Élysée Palace that opened his four-day visit to France.
Addressing Macron, officials and the diplomatic corps on September 25, the Pontiff said the right to life was the “indispensable foundation of every other human right”, Associated Press reported.
He warned against profit-driven uses of science and technology, citing genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs and the possibility of arranging one’s own death.
The remark came barely five weeks after France legalised assisted dying. Macron signed the so-called right to aid in dying into law on August 18 and it was published in the Official Journal the following day.
The law allows adults with a serious and incurable illness at an advanced or terminal stage to receive a lethal substance. The National Assembly gave it final approval on July 15 by 291 votes to 241.
No procedure has yet been carried out. Decrees setting out the process, the supply of the lethal substance and oversight were still pending, and the first requests were not expected before early 2027.
Abortion figures, meanwhile, have continued to climb. In 2024, France became the first country in the world to write abortion into its Constitution.
France recorded 259,416 abortions in 2025, according to a report published on September 22 by the Directorate for Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (Drees). That was 7,219 more than a year earlier, a rise of 2.9 per cent.
The rate reached 17.8 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 49 and rose across all age groups. Some 81 per cent used medication and only 53 per cent took place in hospitals, against all of them in 2004.
Macron used his own welcome address to defend laïcité, the French model of secularism, telling the Pope it was in no way a negation of religion.
Leo offered a different reading. He said a Christian in public service guided by a conscience illuminated by faith could not be treated as a proselytiser or a threat to national unity.
Authentic secularity, he argued, did not exclude religion but valued it. It was a pointed reply to a model of laïcité that had increasingly pushed faith out of the public square.
Citing the same principle, Macron would not attend any of the Pope’s three Masses in France, the Élysée confirmed.
The trip was due to end on September 28 in Metz, northeast France, where the Pope would speak on European integration as a model for peace before European Union leaders.
In June, Leo used his first address to Spain’s parliament to send Europe a similar message on the defence of life.
