A record number of adults in France are expected to have received baptism across the country on Easter, primarily driven by young people joining the Catholic Church.

Some 10,384 adults in France are scheduled to be baptized between Saturday evening and Easter Sunday, according to the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF). This comes on top of an additional 7,404 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 expected to receive baptism this week.

The CEF stated that the record numbers were driven in large part by people under the age of 25, with a 45 per cent increase among adults compared to last year, and a 33 per cent rise among adolescents. This can partially be explained by the fact that fewer babies are being baptized by their parents, and thus, there are more teens and young adults who can request the sacrament.

However, others have also suggested that a cultural shift is underway in the country. Commenting on the surge in popularity of the Catholic Church with young people, the former bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, Monsignor Rey, surmised that many are experiencing a lack of meaning in modern society.

“In this era where both individualism and consumerism are rampant, where woke culture deconstructs while promising absolute freedom of one’s body, where anthropological benchmarks are atomized, in this dead end, man then measures the empty and cannot ignore the question of God even more than in the past,” he told Valeurs Actuelles.

Political scientist Jérôme Fourquet suggested that there were multiple factors in the resurgence of the Catholic Church over the past decade in France, which many had turned away from following the sexual abuse scandals.