In the video, a lanky, crisply-dressed Muslim man of Malian descent walks through a cathedral to the heady sounds of organ music. Several seconds later, he is pictured shaking hands with the most important figure in the Catholic Church: Pope Leo XIV. Off camera, the two exchange gifts and a few words.

Later, on French public television, Bally Bagayoko — the mayor of Saint-Denis and a member of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing France Insoumise party — spoke of how, despite being of the Muslim faith, he shares many parts of his worldview with the pontiff. Last Friday evening, Leo had come to Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, for a prayer event for young people at the Stade de France football stadium. Bagayoko, who swept into office in this March’s municipal elections, used the opportunity to platform progressive issues, including the fight against Islamophobia, support for social mixing, and the recognition of the genocides in Palestine, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For a brief moment, the eyes of France’s tens of millions of Catholics (and many others around the world) were on the poverty-afflicted Parisian suburb that Bagayoko represents. For once this was not because of the usual fearmongering about high crime rates, no-go zones and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood but rather to celebrate the city’s diversity and central role in the Catholic faith.