Pope Francis visits Marseille as anti-migrant views grow in Europe with talk of fences and blockades

Pope Francis is visiting the French port city of Marseille, for centuries a multiethnic and multifaith melting pot, to amplify his call for the Mediterranean to be a place of welcome for migrants.

It’s an increasingly lonely voice in Europe, where some countries are turning more and more to border fences, repatriations and talk of a naval blockade to keep a new influx of would-be refugees out.

Francis is presiding over the closing session of a gathering of Mediterranean Catholic bishops, but his two-day visit that begins Friday is aimed at sending a message well beyond the Catholic faithful to Europe, North Africa and beyond.

After a prayer at Marseille’s basilica, Francis holds an interfaith prayer at a monument dedicated to those who have died at sea — a number estimated to top 28,000 since 2014, according to the International Organization of Migration.

Francis, who has long lamented that the Mediterranean has become “the world’s biggest cemetery,” confirmed his visit months ago, but it comes as Italy is once again coping with an increasing number of migrants setting off in flimsy boats from Tunisia.

Pope Francis poses for a photo with a group of refugees he invited to join him on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica and holding a banner reading: “The refugees for future together” during the general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on June 22, 2016.
AP

After the numbers arriving last week on the island of Lampedusa briefly exceeded the resident population of 6,100, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni resurrected calls for a naval blockade and announced new centers to hold those who don’t qualify for asylum until they can be sent home.

France, for its part, beefed up border patrols at its southern frontier with Italy, a few hours’ drive from Marseille, and increased drone surveillance of the Alps to keep the newcomers from crossing over.

With a European Parliament election looming next year and the far-right challenging the centrist government’s line, French government officials stood firm.


Pope Francis greets a group of migrants during his Wednesday general audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican June 8, 2016.
Pope Francis greets a group of migrants during his Wednesday general audience in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican on June 8, 2016.
REUTERS

“France will not take in migrants from Lampedusa,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said this week on national TF1 television.

“It’s not by taking in more people that we’re going to stem a flow that obviously affects our ability to integrate” them into French society, he said.

Marseille’s archbishop, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, who himself was born in Algeria and moved to France as a child, said such “aggressive” measures weren’t the answer. But he also said “naïve” and peacenik speeches about everyone living together happily ever after weren’t helpful either.


Pope Francis arrives at a regional migrant center to meet youths from Africa, in Bologna, Italy, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017.
Pope Francis arrives at a regional migrant center to meet youths from Africa, in Bologna, Italy, on Oct. 1, 2017.
AP

“The church must measure these evils well and find a path that is neither naively irenic nor aggressive out of special interests, but prophetic,” by being close to migrants and living among them, he told reporters in Rome before the visit.

Marseille is one of the most multicultural, multireligious and multiethnic cities on the shores of the Mediterranean, long characterized by a strong presence of migrants living together in a tradition of tolerance.

France’s INSEE national statistics agency show that there were more than 124,000 immigrants in a city of 862,000 residents in 2019, or about 14.5% of the population, with almost 30,000 Algerians and thousands from Turkey as well as Morocco, Tunisia and other former French colonies in Africa.


Pope Francis shows the life jacket of a young victim drowned in the Mediterranean sea trying to reach Europe on May 28, 2016 at the Vatican during a meeting with 400 children from the south of Italy, Calabria, including children of migrants.
Pope Francis shows the life jacket of a young who victim drowned in the Mediterranean sea trying to reach Europe on May 28, 2016 at the Vatican during a meeting in the south of Italy, Calabria.
Sipa USA

“The pope is proposing a path, as others do, whether you’re a believer or not, whether Muslim, Jew, atheist or Catholic,” Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan said.

“He’s telling us that we have something in common, and that this Mediterranean must be preserved in its biodiversity, of course, but also in its human relationships.”

The visit comes on the eve of the Catholic Church’s annual celebration of migrants and refugees, with this year’s theme noting the internationally recognized right to migrate but also the right to not migrate, and to live at home safely and securely.


French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin speaks to journalists at the headquarters of French police tactical RAID unit ("Research, Assistance, Intervention, Deterrence") during his visit in Marseille on Sept. 12, 2023, ahead of Pope Francis' visit in Marseille next Sept. 22 and 23.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin speaks to journalists at the headquarters of the French police tactical RAID unit during his visit in Marseille on Sept. 12, 2023, ahead of Pope Francis’ visit in Marseille next Sept. 22 and 23.
POOL/AFP via Getty Images

“They choose to leave, but because they did not necessarily have the choice to stay,” Aveline said of this year’s message.

“You seldom leave your country with joy in your heart.”

And for those who are forced to leave, the Catholic Church has been working with other evangelical churches to provide legal ways for migrants to reach Europe, so-called humanitarian corridors that so far have brought more than 6,000 refugees to Italy.


Migrants arrive in the harbour of Italian island of Lampedusa, on September 18, 2023.
Migrants arrive in the harbor of the Italian island of Lampedusa, on Sept. 18, 2023.
AFP via Getty Images

Migrants are seen at a camp in downtown Marseille, southern France, on Sept. 21, 2023.
Migrants are seen at a camp in downtown Marseille, southern France, on Sept. 21, 2023.
AFP via Getty Images

Marco Impagliazzo, head of the Sant’Egidio Community that is helping organize the corridors, said the numbers of migrants arriving by boat in Italy this year are high but by no means constitutes an emergency.

Migration, he said, isn’t an emergency but rather “a long-term problem, a structural phenomenon that requires medium and long-term solutions” that could also be of enormous benefit to Italy, given its demographic crisis.

Among other things, he proposed increasing the number of humanitarian visas granted and restoring funding for local community programs to teach new migrants Italian — a relatively low-cost investment that is crucial to successfully integrating them in society.

Njifon Njiemessa, a student from Cameroon who came to Italy in May in a humanitarian corridor, said he hoped to return one day to Cameroon, but for now he hoped to integrate into Italy.

“If there is any possibility of pushing my studies it will be welcome because my dream, my main dream is to, is still to be useful for those that are back in Cameroon, because my mission is to help those that are there,” Njiemessa told reporters.

Read the full article Here

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

DON’T MISS OUT!
Subscribe To Newsletter
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
Stay Updated
Give it a try, you can unsubscribe anytime.
close-link