Roman Catholics make up about 60 percent of the French population of 65 million. But fewer than 10 percent of French Catholics say they attend Mass regularly. France also has a growing Muslim minority of 6 million and smaller groups of other faiths.

The pope is visiting France almost exactly two years after he made a speech in Regensburg, Germany, in which he angered many Muslims by quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying that the Prophet Muhammad brought "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

"That's the past," said Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of France's Representative Muslim Council, who sat in the front row during the speech on Friday. The presence of Moussaoui and other Muslim leaders was seen as a positive response to the pope.

Meeting privately with French Jews on Friday, the pope spoke vehemently about the church's opposition to "every form of anti-Semitism, which can never be theologically justified," according to a transcript of his remarks. In reaching out to the community he also discussed the Holocaust, saying, "God does not forget."

When the pope's plane landed at Orly Airport near Paris, he was met by Sarkozy and his wife, Carla. The visit to France is Pope Benedict's 10th foreign trip since he became pope in 2005.

In an interview in fluent French with reporters traveling with him on an Alitalia airplane from Rome, the pope was asked what his message was. He replied that it "seems evident to me that secularism in itself is not in contradiction with faith."

Religion and politics, he said, "should be open to each other."