France in September 2026: the most important developments in society
France in September 2026 was marked above all by the visit of Pope Leo XIV from September 25 to 28, with stops in Paris, Lourdes and Metz. He was received by President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée, held an open-air Mass in Paris, attended a vigil at the Stade de France and ended the trip with a Mass in Metz, where Macron was present. Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon did not attend the Paris Mass. The pope warned of a "paradise of machines" that could undermine humanity and spoke against surrogacy and what he called the "offer of a programmed death." Crowds were large, the Paris route was changed because of drug-dealing locations along the original path, and the visit prompted debate about secularism and the decline of French Catholicism.
Second, a dispute at France Inter and Radio France ran through the month. Staff voted to strike over the arrival of the commentator Charles Sapin from Valeurs actuelles, and 300 public figures signed a column against his appointment. The head of Radio France refused to withdraw him, saying she wants voices that do not think alike. Strikes were held on September 12 and 17, and a further one was called for September 21. On September 19 France Inter removed Sapin's Sunday editorial; he called this "preventive censorship," and Jordan Bardella said the station had been "privatized by the left."
Third, politics reached the streets. On September 29 Mediapart accused Bardella of writing antisemitic texts; he denied this, calling the quotes fakes, and filed a defamation suit. More than 300,000 public sector workers demonstrated ahead of the 2027 budget, firefighters marched in Paris, and high school blockades led to clashes with police, with 164 arrests reported by September 28. Tens of thousands marched against a draft law on police use of firearms, and fishermen blockaded ports over fuel prices before lifting the blockades after talks with the minister. The UK ended its "one in, one out" migrant returns deal with France on September 30, and three people died when a boat capsized in the Channel.
The summer's heat also shaped the news: the environment minister called it the hottest summer on record, health authorities counted nearly 8,000 excess deaths, drought left 64,000 people without tap water, and France recorded its largest wildfire since 1949.
by WorldBrief & Maksim Micheliov | AI-generated summary
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