This Friday, September 22, Pope Francis
arrived as agreed in Marseille. To start the festivities, he went to the Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde basilica and then prayed in front of a stele dedicated to migrants and sailors missing at sea. Just before his mass planned for this Saturday
at the Stade Vélodrome, Gad Elmaleh
will have the opportunity to intervene.
“It is planned that we will make a poetic speech on the Mediterranean, on fraternity. Whatever our religious conviction, we can only respect fraternity, love between peoples, communities. That’s good nice to talk about living together but here is a concrete moment. Whether you are Catholic, not Catholic, not practicing, practicing, at a given moment there is a communion, a union of brothers and sisters in humanity, I only want that . This is not the time for debate.”he explained on the microphone of BFM TV. He will be accompanied by the actor Medhi Djaadi and the composer Grégoire, who will accompany him on the piano.
A requested and surprising meeting
See also: Major discomfort live with Gad Elmaleh
This is not the first time that Gad Elmaleh
meets the Pope. On December 23 last year, the two men had the opportunity to talk. A moment that the actor returned to during his appearance in RTL Evening. “I wrote a letter, I was the one who made the request. At first I said to myself, ‘But how do we address the Pope?’ And really, I had to write ‘Dear Pope Francis, what'”he remembered.
Asked about the background of their conversation, Gad Elmaleh replied: “I will surprise you. It was December 23, just after the World Cup [de football, ndrl], so we talked about that! Actually, I’ll be honest, I didn’t know [quoi dire, ndrl] because I was stressed.” From there, an idea came to him. “I didn’t know if I should reach out to him, how I was going to say hello, etc. I went by feeling, and the first thing I said to him was ‘Bravo for the World Cup!’ because he is Argentinian (…). And afterwards, we talked about football with a lot of fun and humanity.”he added.
The duo discussed religion, fraternity, his film Reste un peu and even Claudel. Great moment!
J.G.