Rome, Italy, Oct 1, 2010 / 06:29 am
In the last week, media sources have confirmed that the Holy Father will be meeting with French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on separate occasions in the coming months.
According to French religious news source I.media, Pope Benedict XVI will meet with president Sarkozy in the Vatican on Oct. 8. The Pope and French president have met twice previously, in Paris in 2008 and in 2007, less than a year after Sarkozy's election.
The visit comes on the heels of a situation brought about by tighter restrictions by the French government on camps of undocumented Roma-ethnicity peoples, some 200 of whom were expelled from the country in August. According to France's La Croix, this could enter into possible items on the agenda for the audience, especially because the government took the Pope's encouragement to French pilgrims in an audience shortly after the fact to "accommodate legitimate human diversities" as a critique of their policy.
La Croix also reported that with just 18 months before elections, Sarkozy is interested in Catholic votes.