Chartres pilgrim fined for singing "Jubilate Deo" in a railway station

Every year at Pentecost, the thousands of pilgrims returning from Chartres on specially chartered trains sing a traditional song upon their arrival. One of them received a ticket this Monday for "disturbing the station."

The success of the Chartres pilgrimage continues unabated. Year after year, the ranks of these traditionalist Catholics who walk from Paris to Chartres at Pentecost grow, and the 2025 edition brought together more than 19,000 pilgrims, according to the organizers. This success also presents a logistical challenge: transporting the pilgrims returning from Beauce to their destination at the end of the three-day weekend. This year again, several specially chartered trains for the pilgrimage brought around 7,000 of them back to the Paris region. Their arrival did not go unnoticed at Montparnasse station, where, at the end of the day, a stream of pilgrims in hiking gear and carrying crosses and banners disembarked onto the platforms.

Above all, these pilgrims returning to Paris have made it a custom for several years to signal their arrival and bid farewell at the station by singing a Latin song of thanksgiving, the "Jubilate Deo," which this year, once again, the thousands of travelers freshly arrived at Montparnasse, sang at the top of their lungs. On social media, the images recall the festive songs sung by fans traveling in groups on public transportation to and from a match.

But this time, Rail Security officers decided that this display of enthusiasm was not to their liking, as revealed by journalist Jordan Florentin of the Frontières media outlet. Noticing a small group of pilgrims who had remained behind the rest of the group, around 7:30 p.m. this Monday evening, as they were descending from the station hall towards the escalator exit, five SNCF officers informed the young pilgrims that they were in violation of the law.

The incident was reported to Le Figaro by one of these young pilgrims. "We were waiting for friends and we broke away from the rest of the group," Émile recounted. "At that moment, the officers came straight towards us and accosted the youngest member of the group, asked us to stop singing, and told us it was a disturbance." His friend, Augustin, 18, was then asked for his papers and fined by one of the officers for causing a disturbance in the station. He will have to pay the SNCF €60 fine.

"There's often music and singing in the stations!"

"We told the officers we didn't understand, because there were thousands of us singing, and generally there's often music and singing in the stations, especially since the SNCF installed free-access pianos!" continues Émile, the witness to the scene, who says the only explanation he received in return was that they couldn't "fine everyone" and that the young man was fined because he had "looked at" the SNCF officers while singing.

"It's unfair, our friend paid for everyone because these agents were exasperated, and seemed to have a grudge against pilgrims in general," continues Émile. Contacted by Le Figaro, the SNCF communications department declined to comment at this time.

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