CATHOLIC Church authorities denied yesterday that the far right leader, Mr Jean Marie Le Pen, had been invited to attend a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II during a forthcoming visit to France.
Mr Le Pen had said that European Parliament members had been invited to the Pope's celebration of the 1,500th anniversary of the baptism of pagan king Clovis in Reims on Sunday, and that he would attend in that capacity.
"Some people think the country, the nation, history, all that is not important, that we are French because we live here or because we just happened to be born here," Mr Le Pen, under fire for saying races are unequal, told France 3 television.
"I believe in the past, I believe in roots, I am proud of belonging to an ancient country. . . I will therefore be where the Pope will be, among the deputies because I am a European (Parliament) deputy," he said.
But Father Bernard Goureau, spokesman for the Reims archbishop, said Mr Le Pen was not on the list of 393 guests invited by the archbishop of the northeastern city.
"As far as the archbishop and organisers are aware, the European deputies never made themselves heard and there is no group of European deputies," he said.
Church officials said Mr Le Pen was free to attend the papal rally as a private citizen but that he would not be able to sit in the area reserved for guests.
"He hasn't been invited. He won't be turned away if he turns up, but he won't be given a seat," said a spokesman for the bishops' conference in Paris.
There was no immediate comment from Mr Le Pen's National Front party.
Clovis, a pagan king who was the first west European monarch to convert to Roman Catholicism, has been hijacked as a symbol of the National Front. It says white, Christian French civilisation is superior to others.
Mainstream politicians have savaged Mr Le Pen for saying racial differences are "a fact".
But almost all shied away from proposals to ban his party.
Mr Le Pen has called on young members of his National Front to prepare themselves for revolution, predicting that the country's political system would collapse.
"It is certain only the National Front can rescue the country from decadence," he told leaders of the front's youth wing gathered at a weekend party congress.
"At some point, all this will stop and then the revolution will occur. . . At some point the worm eaten structures of our system will collapse," he said.