[1] The Catholic Church in France had indeed wished that the dynamism and the meetings of this gathering do not benefit not only in Paris and the Île-de-France but that all the French dioceses can also participate, therefore many several innovations were made.

Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger allow the stay of young people in the dioceses of the host country,[2] in this event was firstly performed a Calvary.

In the welcome address, John Paul II pointed out that the first time officially at World Youth Day were young people from the countries of the former Soviet Union - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Kazakhs and representatives of the other Central Asian republics and Christians from the Caucasus (600 thousand participants).

The final Mass of the event was celebrated by John Paul II at the Longchamp Racecourse, presenting 1,100,000[4]/ 1,200,000[5] and from the Czech Republic to Paris, 2000 pilgrims arrived.

The break of three years instead of two will become a practice, starting from the 2002 edition: the choice is due to the desire not to thicken the calendar too much, allowing the organizers to have more time to prepare the event, now more and more articulated, and to various Christian groups, parishes and associations worldwide to have more summers available.