Pope Francis is visiting the French port city of Marseille, for centuries a multi-ethnic and multi-religious melting pot, to reinforce his call for the Mediterranean to become a welcoming place for migrants.
It is an increasingly silent voice in Europe, where some countries are increasingly turning to border fences, deportations and talk of naval blockades to prevent new influxes of would-be refugees.
Francis is presiding over the closing session of a gathering of Mediterranean Catholic bishops, but his two-day trip that begins Friday aims to send a message far beyond Catholics to Europe, North Africa and beyond.
After prayers at Marseille’s basilica, Francis held an interfaith prayer at a monument dedicated to those who have died at sea — the number estimated to reach the highest since 2014 at 28,000, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Francis, who has long lamented that the Mediterranean has become “the world’s biggest graveyard,” confirmed his visit several months ago, but it comes as Italy again faces a surge in migrants departing on flimsy boats from Tunisia.
Pope Francis poses with a group of refugees he invited to join him on the steps of St. Peter and held a banner that read: “Refugees for a common future” during a public audience in St. Peter in the Vatican, on June 22, 2016.AP
After the number of arrivals last week on the island of Lampedusa briefly exceeded its population of 6,100, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni raised calls for naval sanctions and announced a new center to hold those ineligible for asylum until they can be deported.
France, for its part, stepped up border patrols on its southern border with Italy, a few hours’ drive from Marseille, and stepped up drone surveillance in the Alps to prevent new migrants from crossing.
With European Parliament elections due next year and the far-right challenging the central government’s line, French government officials are standing firm.
Pope Francis greets a group of migrants during Wednesday’s general audience in Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican June 8, 2016. REUTERS
“France will not accept 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 the flow that clearly affects our ability to integrate” them into French society, he said.
The archbishop of Marseille, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, who was himself born in Algeria and moved to France as a child, said such “aggressive” measures were not the answer. But he also says the “naive” and peacenik speech about everyone living happily ever after doesn’t help either.
Pope Francis arrives at a regional migrant center to meet youth from Africa, in Bologna, Italy, on Oct. 1, 2017. AP
“The Church must measure this evil well and find a path that is not naive or aggressive from special interests, but prophetic,” by being close to immigrants and living among them, he told reporters in Rome before the visit.
Marseille is one of the most multicultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic cities on the Mediterranean coast, long characterized by a strong presence of immigrants living together in a tradition of tolerance.
France’s national statistics agency INSEE shows that there are more than 124,000 immigrants in a city with 862,000 inhabitants 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 boy who drowned in the Mediterranean sea while trying to reach Europe on May 28, 2016 at the Vatican during a meeting in southern Italy, Calabria. Sipa USA
“The Pope suggests a path, as others do, whether you are a believer or not, whether Muslim, Jewish, atheist or Catholic,” said Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan.
“He told us that we have something in common, and that this Mediterranean must be preserved in its biodiversity, of course, but also in its human relations.”
The visit was held on the eve of the Catholic Church’s annual celebration of migrants and refugees, with this year’s theme stating the internationally recognized right to migrate but also the right not to migrate, and to stay at home safely and securely.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin speaks to reporters at the headquarters of the French police’s tactical RAID unit during his visit in Marseille on September 12, 2023, ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Marseille on September 22 and 23. POOL/AFP via Getty Images
“They choose to leave, but because they don’t necessarily have the choice to stay,” Aveline said of this year’s message.
“You rarely leave your country with joy in your heart.”
And for those forced to leave, the Catholic Church has partnered with other evangelical churches to provide legal means for migrants to reach Europe, the so-called humanitarian corridors that have so far brought more than 6,000 refugees to Italy.
Migrants arrive at the port of Lampedusa island in Italy, on September 18, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
Migrants are seen at a camp in downtown Marseille, southern France, on September 21, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
Marco Impagliazzo, head of the Sant’Egidio Community that helped organize the corridor, said the number of migrants arriving by boat in Italy this year was high but did not mean an emergency.
Migration, he said, is not an emergency but rather “a long-term problem, a structural phenomenon that requires medium and long-term solutions” that could also be of great 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 immigrants Italian — a relatively low-cost investment essential to successfully integrating them into society.
Njifon Njiemessa, a student from Cameroon who came to Italy in May in the humanitarian corridor, said he hopes to return one day to Cameroon, but for now he hopes to integrate into Italy.
“If there is a possibility to continue my studies, it will be welcome because my dream, my main dream is, is still useful for those who return to Cameroon, because my mission is to help those who are there,” Njiemessa told reporters.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
