Pope Leo XIV will travel to France for an official state visit from September 25 to 28, the Vatican announced on Saturday, the first such trip by a pontiff in 18 years.
You might not have thought about it too much as you enjoyed an extra day off work, but it is perhaps unexpected that France - proudly secular since 1905 - has so many public holidays based around Catholic festivals.
Pope Leo XIV and French President Emmanuel Macron held their first meeting on Friday, a private audience at the Vatican where discussions ranged from the Iran war to basketball.
A mother superior for four decades isolated and bullied nuns in her care living in the French capital's Montmartre neighbourhood, a report showed on Thursday.
It's a massive nationwide party in neighbouring Spain, while Italy, Portugal and several Latin American countries get an extra day off work - so what happens in France on the Festival of Epiphany?
France is a secular republic and has laws in place to ensure that religion plays no part in the state - so Christmas is largely counted as a non-religious holiday. Here's how that works.
France's interior minister on Sunday said he opposed a proposal put before parliament to ban young girls wearing the Muslim headscarf, saying such a move risked being "stigmatising" for the minors.
French police launched an investigation on Tuesday after nine pig heads were found outside several mosques in the Paris region, the city's police chief said, saying further findings were possible.
The practice of polygamous marriage has been the subject of a surprising number of culture wars in France, and can also get your application for French citizenship and residency refused.
A French archbishop's decision to promote a priest who was sentenced to jail for raping a teenaged boy has drawn new condemnation of the Roman Catholic Church for its record on sex abuse.
It was perhaps inevitable, but planned tributes in France following the death of Pope Francis have led to a row about the principle of state secularism.
On the outskirts of Paris, 44-year-old French Muslim weightlifter Sylvie Eberena concentrates hard and pushes 80 kilos of bar and weights clean over her hijab-covered head.
France’s right-dominated Senate has backed a bill to ban religious symbols including the hijab in all sport competitions, professional and amateur, sparking accusations of discrimination from rights advocates.
France's prime minister Saturday vowed to help investigate allegations of decades of sexual abuse at a Catholic school, after the left accused him of lying to parliament earlier this week when he said he was unaware of the case.
French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo unveiled a special edition on Monday to mark 10 years since an attack on its offices by Islamist gunmen that decimated its staff.
The Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich is to preside over Christmas Day mass at Notre-Dame de Paris on Wednesday morning, celebrating for the first time since the fire devastated the cathedral in 2019.
Pope Francis completed a one-day trip to Corsica on Sunday marked by cheering crowds and good humour in the French Mediterranean island, a stronghold of the Catholic faith.
The Choir School of Notre-Dame de Paris (Maîtrise) will give its first concerts in the rebuilt cathedral on Tuesday and Wednesday, performing "Magnificat" by Jean-Sébastien Bach, marking the start of a season of around 50 recitals.
Pope Francis will visit Corsica, a stronghold of the Catholic faith, on Sunday, with locals hotly anticipating the first-ever trip by a pontiff to the French Mediterranean island.
The Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes in the Hautes-Pyrénées region reopened to the public on Saturday after flooding earlier in the day caused it to close, the sanctuary said on its website.
Amid strong criticism of France from groups including Amnesty International, here's a look at the rules on the hijab for both athletes and spectators during the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics.
The Catholic Church already knew by 2021 of claims of sexual abuse against a beloved humanitarian French priest, the late Abbe Pierre, members of an independent commission said Saturday.
Barely a day goes by without a fresh death threat against teaching staff being reported in France. This time, a teacher from a high school in the Hauts-de-Seine region has pressed charges after a student threatened to kill her.
France believes that Russia's security service FSB was behind a campaign in which Star of David graffiti were daubed on buildings in and around Paris last autumn, a French source said on Friday.
