Pope Francis once again denounced the fate of migrants in the Mediterranean on Friday, castigating “indifference” and “fear”, on the first day of a visit to Marseille, in a context of growing hostility towards candidates for immigration. exile in a Europe tempted by withdrawal.
Welcomed at the airport by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, the head of the Catholic Church quickly left in his usual white Fiat 500 for the Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica, the “Good Mother”, symbol of the second city of France, perched on a hill overlooking the bay of Marseille.
Under a clear, sweeping sky, he first participated in a prayer with the clergy in this neo-Byzantine basilica with walls covered with ex-votos, in a city with a population shaped by centuries of migration.
He then gathered with representatives of other religions, Christians, Muslims and Jews in particular, in front of the memorial to sailors and migrants missing at sea, on an esplanade of the basilica, once again hammering home his message of relief and welcome.
“We can no longer witness the tragedies of shipwrecks caused by heinous trafficking and the fanaticism of indifference,” said the Pope, who has regularly denounced the fate of migrants since his election ten years ago. “People who are at risk of drowning, when abandoned on the waves, must be rescued. It is a duty of humanity, it is a duty of civilization.”
“Believers, we must […] be exemplary in mutual and fraternal welcome,” Francis pleaded, denouncing once again the “immense cemetery” that the Mediterranean has become, where “human dignity is buried.”
“Strong words”
“In the face of such a tragedy, words are of no use, but actions,” insisted the Pope, castigating “the paralysis of fear” and thanking the NGOs who rescue migrants at sea, while denouncing those who prevent them. to work “because something is missing on board, this or that… these are gestures of hatred under the guise of neutrality”.
“We were hoping for strong words, but it goes beyond what we could have hoped for,” reacted to AFP François Thomas, president of the NGO SOS Méditerranée which charters a rescue ship for migrants.
Junior, a young Ivorian who arrived in Marseille at the age of 16, read an extract from the Acts of the Apostles on the shipwreck of the Apostle Paul on the island of Malta.
The pope’s trip to Marseille comes as a new wave of arrivals on the Italian island of Lampedusa has pushed the European Union to adopt an emergency plan to help Rome manage migratory flows from South Africa. North. France “will not welcome migrants” from Lampedusa, its Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin warned on Tuesday.
The Mediterranean is the most dangerous migration route in the world, with more than 28,000 missing at sea since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Among the faithful who came to see the Pope at the “Good Mother”, Véronique Dembele, 47, who arrived in France from Mali five years ago, told AFP of her “immense joy”. “It’s incredible but true,” testified this woman who now has a residence permit. And she does not find “that this visit is political”: the pope “comes to support migrants but also to thank the State for what it does for migrants. And he tells the state to do even more.”
This visit sparked great enthusiasm in France, despite the decline of Catholicism in the country, accelerated by the crisis of sexual violence in the Church.
“Outstanding” security
Some 60,000 people are expected on Saturday for the mass that the pope is to celebrate at the Vélodrome stadium, another symbol of the city, preceded by a stroll in a popemobile along the Prado, a large avenue now decorated in the yellow and white colors of the Vatican, to which another 100,000 people are expected.
Around 6,000 members of the police will be mobilized to secure the visit, an “extraordinary system”, according to a senior police official.
In France, a country governed by the principle of secularism, Jorge Bergoglio’s visit was also criticized, with some on the right deploring political “interference” on the migrant issue, with elected officials on the left accusing President Emmanuel Macron of “trampling” the religious neutrality by attending mass at the Vélodrome.
Nearly 500 years after the last papal visit to Marseille, this trip is the first by a pope to France since Benedict XVI in 2008. Francis briefly visited Strasbourg in 2014, but it was to the European Parliament.
This is the 44th trip abroad for the pope, who now uses a wheelchair and admitted in early September that traveling was “no longer as easy as at the beginning.”