In the French press, it is traditional for newsrooms to publish hoaxes in the form of authentic information on April Fools’ Day. The Catholic website Le Salon Beige played along, announcing that U.S. Vice President JD Vance was coming to France to participate in the significant traditionalist pilgrimage to Chartres. Many were taken in, including an extreme left-wing French MP, who did not waste a second to warn about the political connotations of Vance’s visit and that the vice president will likely turn his pilgrimage into an “ideological weapon.”
The editors of Le Salon Beige had done their homework well. On the morning of April 1st, they published a detailed article recounting the tortuous spiritual journey of the man who became vice president of the United States following the election of Donald Trump in November 2024. From a family with an evangelical background, Vance had ceased all practice of the faith before converting to Catholicism in 2019. For the occasion, and in order to give more credibility to his announcement, the author of the article, Michel Janva, called on the testimony of Rod Dreher, a personal friend of JD Vance, emphasising the attraction that Catholicism had exerted on Vance, for “his intellectual and spiritual depth.”
Continuing the recounting of his journey of conversion under the patronage of Saint Augustine, the article ended by announcing Vance’s participation in the Chartres pilgrimage. This major gathering of the traditionalist world is held every year on the occasion of the feast of Pentecost and brings together, year after year, ever-larger crowds of believers for three days of prayers and Masses celebrated in Latin, in the extraordinary form of the Roman missal—a form of liturgy that today is repeatedly attacked by the Vatican. The choice of Vance thus highlighted was not at all incongruous. Other political personalities from the conservative world have already shown themselves among the pilgrims of Chartres, such as Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou and pretender to the throne of France, or Marion Maréchal, the European deputy and niece of Marine Le Pen.
For those who took the trouble to read the Le Salon Beige article to the end, there was a link at the bottom of the page to an interview with Vance himself … and pointing to a magnificent photo of a goldfish: Poissons d’Avril (April fish) is the French phrase for ‘April Fools.’
Some people did not bother to read the whole article. The information revealed by Le Salon Beige was even considered credible enough to worry an extreme left-wing MP, who questioned the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, about the potential visit of Vance to France for the Chartres pilgrimage.
“The U.S. vice president will not be coming to the pilgrimage just as a pilgrim, he is likely to make a frontal ideological speech against our Republic, with a certain vision of religion that has no place in public debate,” warned LFI deputy Arnaud Le Gall in a grotesque sequence in which we see the minister staring wide-eyed in disbelief at this prospect. Barrot cautiously replied that he had not yet been informed of such a visit and that he would welcome Vance whatever happens before a voice rang out in the audience to reveal the truth of the matter: “April Fool!”
Arnaud Le Gall was taken to task and accepted full responsibility for his mistake on X. April Fools’ Day was elevated to the status of ‘fake news’ and Vance was accused of using his religious convictions as an “ideological weapon” and of practising “aggressive journeys.”
This sequence is, of course, quite amusing. But above all, it is particularly revealing of the degree of animosity felt by part of the French Left towards the Catholic world and conservatives, of whom Vance appears to be the hated embodiment.
