France’s national police detailed on 23 September the security and crowd-management blueprint for Pope Leo XIV’s 26-27 September visit to Lourdes. The plan deploys 2,500 officers drawn from CRS riot units, RAID specialists and local forces, plus three logistics bases to feed and house reinforcements. Traffic modelling forecasts 1,000 coach arrivals and 15,000 private vehicles, peaking at 200,000 pilgrims on Sunday morning. A perimeter designated “grand évènement” under the new internal-security code allows bag searches and drone surveillance, while a wider anti-terrorism cordon covers the entire city. For mobility stakeholders, the key impact is a 48-hour ban on non-essential heavy-goods vehicles on the A64 and N21 approaches and a rerouting of regional TER trains to free platform capacity for pilgrim charters. Hoteliers report 100 % occupancy within 40 km. Companies running field-service teams in southwest France should reschedule site visits or supply runs, as road closures may stretch turnaround times. The Hautes-Pyrénées prefecture will issue live updates via the FR-Alert cell-broadcast system. Police chiefs say lessons from previous papal stops in Marseille and Ajaccio informed the heavy emphasis on digital cartography and pre-staged medical posts, aiming to minimise disruption to local residents.
Source: Police Nationale
