Pope calls for pan-European action on migration to avoid 'sea of death'
Addressing huge crowds in Marseille, Pope Francis urged European governments to act together to welcome migrants and prevent the Mediterranean, where thousands have drowned, from becoming a "sea of death".
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Immigration issues dominated Francis's 27-hour trip to the French port of Marseille, which has been a crossroads of cultures and religions for centuries.
In a 35-minute speech on Saturday morning, closing a Church conference on Mediterranean issues, the pontiff urged governments to welcome migrants instead of viewing them as invaders.
"Those who risk their lives at sea do not invade, they look for welcome," he said.
"There is a cry of pain that resonates most of all, and it is turning the Mediterranean, the 'mare nostrum', from the cradle of civilization into the 'mare mortuum', the graveyard of dignity: it is the stifled cry of migrant brothers and sisters," he said, using Latin terms meaning "our sea" and "sea of death".
According to UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, about 178,500 migrants have come to Europe via the Mediterranean this year, while about 2,500 died or went missing.
Last week some 8,500 people arrived on 199 boats on the Italian island of Lampedusa.
In his address, Francis called on people to "hear the cries of pain" rising from migrants seeking a better life.
He said migration was not an emergency but "a reality of our times, a process that involves three continents around the Mediterranean and that must be governed with wise foresight, including a European response".
Governments in several European countries, including Italy, Hungary, and Poland, are led by outspoken opponents of immigration.
France's Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who welcomed Francis on his arrival in Marseille on Friday, has said France would not welcome any migrants from the island.
President Emmanuel Macron and Interior Minister Darmanin are planning tougher measures to control arrivals through a new immigration bill that goes before parliament this autumn.
Domestic 'interference'
Macron held a private meeting with the Pope on Saturday and attended a papal Mass in the afternoon for 50,000 people in the city's Velodrome stadium. Authorities said another 100,000 lined the route to the stadium.
Some left-wing politicians have criticised the president's decision to attend Mass as an infringement of France's laws on secularism (laicité) which strictly separates church and state. Macron said he was attending out of respect for the Pope.
Others on the right have criticised Francis for "interfering" in domestic politics, notably on the issues of assisted dying and inscribing the right to abortion in the constitution – two of Macron's projects.
Old people risk being "pushed aside, under the false pretences of a supposedly dignified and 'sweet' death that is more 'salty' than the waters of the sea," Francis warned.
He also spoke of "unborn children, rejected in the name of a false right to progress, which is instead a retreat into the selfish needs of the individual".
(with newswires)
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