The Pope challenged French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty.
Macron greeted Francis on a wind-swept promenade overlooking Marseille’s old port, and helped him walk into the Palais du Pharo for the Mediterranean bishops meeting. With his wife by his side, the French leader listened as a young Italian volunteer working in Greece and the bishop of Tirana, Albania, who fled to Italy during Albania’s communist rule, spoke of the welcomes they received in foreign countries.
Nevertheless, Francis said talk of a migration “emergency” only fuels “alarmist propaganda” and stokes peoples’ fears. The French president and first lady Brigitte Macron later attended Francis’ final Mass at the Marseille Velodrome that drew an estimated 50,000 people and featured a giant banner of the pope hoisted up in the stands. The Vatican, citing local organizers, said 100,000 more lined Marseilles’ central Avenue du Prado to cheer as his popemobile passed by.
Migrants and their advocates living in Marseille, which has a long tradition of multicultural hospitality, said Francis’ call for charity and paths to citizenship gave them hope that at least someone in Europe was sympathetic to their plight. “You don’t leave people to drown in the Mediterranean. It is not possible,” Thomas said at Marseilles’ memorial to migrants lost at sea.
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