Pope decries indifference toward migrants, as he visits multicultural port of Marseille

MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Pope Francis blasted the “fanaticism of indifference” that greets migrants seeking a better life, as he arrived Friday in the French port of Marseille amid a new influx of would-be refugees from Africa that has sparked a backlash from some of Europe’s increasingly anti-migrant leaders.

Opening a brief, overnight visit to the Mediterranean port, Francis presided over a silent moment of prayer at a memorial dedicated to sailors and migrants lost at sea, surrounded by Marseille’s faith leaders and migrant rescue organizations.

The visit, scheduled months ago, came as Europe’s migrant dilemma is again in headlines, after the Italian island of Lampedusa was overwhelmed last week by nearly 7,000 migrants who arrived in a day, more than its resident population.

“Cruelty, a lack of humanity. A terrible lack of humanity,” Francis said of the Lampedusa drama as he flew to Marseille.

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MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Pope Francis arrived Friday in the French port city of Marseille, for centuries a multiethnic and multifaith melting pot, to amplify his call for Mediterranean countries in Europe to make the region a place of welcome for migrants, not a cemetery for people who die trying to cross the sea.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and four children in traditional dress greeted the pope on the airport tarmac before the Vatican and French anthems were played for the arrival ceremony. His two-day visit comes as Europe is again seeing an increasing number of people travel on flimsy boats from Tunisia to Italy, and resurgent political tensions about how to manage migration.

Speaking to reporters on the plane en route to Marseille, Francis was asked about the recent influx of migrants to the Italian island of Lampedusa, where the thousands of people who arrived last week briefly outnumbered the island’s resident population.

“Cruelty, a lack of humanity. A terrible lack of humanity,” Francis said.

The pope's position on migration is an increasingly lonely one in Europe, where some countries are emphasizing border fences, repatriations and the possibility 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 to Marseille is aimed at sending a message well beyond the Catholic faithful to Europe, North Africa and beyond.

Bells rang out from Marseille's Notre Dame de la Garde basilica as the pope headed there to lead a prayer, before holding an interfaith prayer at a nearby monument dedicated to those who have died at sea.

The U.N.'s International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 28,000 Europe-bound migrants have died since 2014 while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

The modest commemorative plaque stands on a rocky outcropping overlooking Marseille and the Mediterranean Sea, which was bathed in sunlight Friday ahead of the pope's arrival.

Above the monument rises the cross of Camargue, a symbol composed of a Christian cross, an anchor and a heart embodying faith, hope and charity. The words “to those who perished and disappeared at sea, victims of illegal immigration” were added to the memorial in 2010, after some migrants were saved from a shipwreck by a French ship.

Francis, who has long lamented that the Mediterranean Sea has become “the world's biggest cemetery,” confirmed his visit to Marseille months ago, but it comes as Italy is again seeing an increasing number of migrant arrivals.

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 patrols at its southern border with Italy, a few hours' drive from Marseille, and increased drone surveillance of the Alps to keep newcomers from crossing over. With a European Parliament election set for next year and France's far right challenging the centrist government's policies, French government officials stood firm.

“France will not take in migrants from Lampedusa,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said this week on French TV network TF1. “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 was born in Algeria and moved to France as a child, said such “aggressive” measures weren’t the answer. But he said “naive" and peacenik speeches about everyone living together happily ever after weren’t helpful either.

“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, Aveline told reporters in Rome before the visit.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the maritime rescue organization SOS Mediterranee, which operates a ship that assists migrants, issued Friday an “urgent call for all actors to dignify the lives of children, women and men survivors of rescues at sea.”

SOS Mediteranee co-founder Sophie Beauer said “the unfathomable death toll in the Mediterranean this year could have been prevented if the political will was there,” according to the humanitarian groups' joint statement. “As a prominent moral and global figure ... Pope Francis will use his visit to Marseille to recall the moral imperative underlying the laws and conventions that apply at sea: no one in distress should be left to drown.”

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

Data from France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, or INSEE, shows the city of 862,000 residents had more than 124,000 immigrants in 2019, or about 14.5% of the population. The immigrant population included almost 30,000 Algerians and thousands of people from Turkey, as well as from Morocco, Tunisia and other former French colonies in Africa.

“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.”

About 350,000 Catholic faithful were expected in the city over the weekend, including 100,000 to attend the pope's parade on Marseille's major avenue ahead of a Saturday Mass at the Velodrome stadium. The city was put under high security, including through kilometers (miles) of barriers and dozens of surveillance cameras deployed along Francis' route.

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

“They choose to leave, but because they did not necessarily have the choice to stay,” Aveline said of the intended message. “You seldom leave your country with joy in your heart."

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