The “Good Mother” drone rings solemnly, awaiting the Pope. A plane cuts through an immaculate blue sky, and a young woman, brandishing her smartphone with the “flight tracker” application, manages to identify that it is the pontifical plane. Yes, that’s him! Pope Francis lands at Marignane airport, and sets foot on French soil – something he has not done since his visit to Strasbourg for a speech to the Council of Europe in 2014.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne is there to welcome him, as well as Gérald Darmanin, Minister responsible for Religion. We capture this image of this pope, almost 87 years old, crippled with pain, getting up from his wheelchair and standing as straight as his strength allows him during the Marseillaise. You have to leave quickly, to cross the town to climb up to Notre-Dame de la Garde. We thought we would find Marseille under siege, but no, security is ensured flexibly. On the old port, tourists and locals enjoy the rays of a generous, but not overwhelming, sun. Under Norman Foster’s vast shade house and its mirrored ceiling, sitting cross-legged on the ground, a young pilgrim, a clearly visible cross around his neck, delights in the piece of a musician’s zither.
Francis asks the two hundred priests, deacons, seminarians and consecrated persons to dedicate themselves to forgiveness, compassion and help for the “most fragile and less fortunate”: “May he who approaches you,” says the Pope, “not find neither distance nor judgment; that he finds the testimony of a humble joy, more fruitful than any displayed ability. May the wounded of life find a safe haven in your gaze, an encouragement in your embrace, a caress in your hands capable of wiping away tears. »
After this moment of prayer, a few meters from the basilica, in this exceptional site which, with this bell tower which resembles a lighthouse, dominates the Mediterranean and broods over the Phocaean city, in front of the memorial for those lost at sea, the sovereign pontiff invites to a meditation. “The sea lies before us; it is a source of life, but also a place that evokes the tragedy of shipwrecks causing death,” says François. “We are gathered in memory of those who did not survive, who were not saved,” he continues.
He admonishes to – again and again – raise awareness: “Shipwrecks should not be considered as news items, and deaths as numbers. They are first and last names, they are faces and stories, they are shattered lives and shattered dreams. » While Lampedusa is on everyone’s mind, using a formula he used in Strasbourg in 2014, in a limpid Marseille light, François sighs to see the Mediterranean becoming “an immense cemetery where many brothers and sisters find themselves even deprived of right to a grave, and where only human dignity is buried.”
Then he attacks: “We cannot resign ourselves to seeing human beings treated as bargaining chips, imprisoned and tortured in atrocious ways; we can no longer witness the tragedies of shipwrecks caused by heinous trafficking and the fanaticism of indifference. People who are at risk of drowning when abandoned in the waves must be rescued. It is a duty of humanity, it is a duty of civilization! »
The spiritual leader gives way to the politician that this Jesuit likes to be – and which will be seen even more in a speech expected at the Palais du Pharo today, at the close of the Mediterranean Meetings. From the top of the hill of Notre-Dame de la Garde, the holy father exhorts us to “stop being afraid of the problems that the Mediterranean poses to us! For the European Union and for all of us, our survival depends on it.” After this listening, Father Benoist de Sinety, present in the audience, confided to Le Point: “This is the first time that such a clear and powerful word has been said on French soil within the Church on the subject migrants. There is no exegesis to be done other than taking these words literally. And then for the baptized and men of good will to draw the consequences in their choices and their daily lives. »
The people of Marseille, and through them the world, are waiting for strong words from Pope Francis. “But I don’t know if they will be heard,” sighs a caregiver, calling, without really believing in it, for a start “not necessarily religious, but in any case humanist.”
At the foot of the Good Mother, two tattooed young people on scooters peer towards the summit, and ask: “Have you seen the Pope? »They are not very Catholic, as they say. But they would like to see François. “Because he is a unique personality in the world,” they say. On the outskirts of the Vélodrome stadium where the holy father will celebrate a high mass today – with the actor Gad Elmaleh as the driver… – along the boulevard du Prado, which François will go up – for a kilometer – in a popemobile, a trader grumbles : “You realize that we are welding the manhole covers because the Pope is coming. Our city has never been cleaner. But what will happen on Monday? It will become dirty again…”