"Right now, the only thing we have left is prayer"

Since January 2022, the "France Prays" (La France prie) project has been growing throughout France. These public prayers in the square are taking place almost anywhere, usually on Wednesdays at 6pm, or at other times of the week. They are held outside in order to invite the passers-by to join in.

It all started with an appeal from a French expatriate in Austria, Louis-Pierre Laroche, on YouTube. At the beginning of January 2022, Laroche shared his experience of a similar initiative in his adoptive country, which had already snowballed internationally, but not yet in France. Thanks to his video, the movement was started in France, with a website and an interactive map listing all the places where people gather to pray. The movement was called "France Prays".

By the second Wednesday after the launch in France, nearly 1,250 prayer locations were listed in the country. Today, there are 2860 and to the great surprise of Louis-Pierre Laroche, "the movement has endured”. As proof, "in August 2022, we had about fifteen new groups added, so it is a vigorous movement," he confided to Notre-Dame Radio.

The movement's website indicates that the aim is to "entrust our country - which is currently experiencing one of the most serious societal crises in its history - to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and implore her to come to the aid of its people. In La Roche-sur-Yon, in the Vendée department, Marie-Claire confided to the newspaper Ouest-France that "right now, the only thing that we have left is prayer."

"It's good to fight for freedom, it's good to fight for all that, but as Catholics, we have something else," explains Louis-Pierre Laroche in his video. "As Catholics, we have a weapon that is the rosary and that has proven to be very effective throughout history."

The movement quickly took on a global dimension. In France, "if you look at the map, you can see right away that all corners of France are concerned."

https://www.epochtimes.fr