(Marseille) A meeting in a working-class neighborhood then with President Macron, a speech on the Mediterranean, a ride in a “popemobile” and a giant mass. Pope Francis ends his visit to Marseille on Saturday, where he once again denounced the fate reserved for migrants.
Barely arriving in France’s second city on Friday, the head of the Catholic Church castigated the “fear” and “indifference” faced with the fate of migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean by commemorating in front of a monument dedicated to sailors and migrants missing at sea at the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica.
In front of this “Good Mother” who symbolizes the city and dominates the bay of the Phocaean city, Jorge Bergoglio paid tribute to the rescuers who “save migrants” at sea and denounced the “gestures of hatred” of those who put sticks in their hands. the wheels.
A new strong declaration in a context of growing hostility in Europe towards candidates for exile and even as a new wave of arrivals on the Italian island of Lampedusa has pushed the European Union to adopt a plan of urgently to help Rome manage migratory flows from North Africa.
France “will not welcome migrants” from Lampedusa, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin warned on Tuesday, who will soon present a new law on immigration.
Saturday morning, the 86-year-old pope will begin his second day in Marseille with a meeting with people in precarious situations at the congregation of “Missionaries of Charity” in Saint-Maura, a very poor neighborhood on the edge of the north of the city.
He will then close the “Mediterranean Meetings”, the official occasion of his visit, which for a week has brought together 70 bishops and as many young people from around this sea marked by the presence of the three great monotheistic religions.
Challenges
He will give a speech there on the challenges, particularly human and ecological, facing this region. This will also be the occasion for an interview at the end of the morning with President Emmanuel Macron, who for his part is not expected to speak.
Shortly after 3 p.m. (9 a.m. Eastern time), in the midst of an “extraordinary” security system, mobilizing 6,000 members of the police and a thousand private security agents contracted by the organizers, the pope will head towards another well-known symbol of Marseille, the Vélodrome stadium, the home of the Olympique de Marseille transformed into a giant cathedral for the duration of a mass.
His trip, the first by a pope to Marseille in nearly 500 years, has created excitement and Francis will make part of the journey in a “papemobile”, along Avenue du Prado, one of the city’s main roads. which leads to the sea, decorated in the yellow and white colors of the Vatican.
Some 100,000 people are expected along the route according to the municipality and the organizers. And nearly 60,000 others obtained registered tickets, precious keys to the giant mass in the stadium, which less than 48 hours earlier hosted the French XV for the Rugby World Cup.
Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte will attend the service, scheduled for 4 p.m. A presence which offended, in particular left-wing elected officials who accused the president of “trampling” on the principle of secularism. To which the Élysée retorted that he would not attend mass “as a believer” but “as head of state”.
The Pope will then immediately leave Marseille for Rome, after a final brief interview with Emmanuel Macron at the airport.