Pope Francis insists Europe doesn’t have a migrant emergency and challenges countries to open ports

MARSEILLE – Pope Francis challenged French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty, insisting Saturday that the continent isn’t facing a migration “emergency” but rather a long-term reality that governments must deal with humanely.

For a second straight day in the French port city of Marseille, Francis took aim at European countries that have tried to close their doors to migrants and tried to shame them into responding with charity instead. He called for migrants to have legal pathways to citizenship, and for the Mediterranean Sea that so many people try to cross to reach Europe to be a beacon of hope, not a graveyard of desperation.

The Mediterranean, Francis told Macron and a gathering of regional bishops, “cries out for justice, with its shores that on the one hand exude affluence, consumerism and waste, while on the other there is poverty and instability.”

The pope’s visit to the city in southern France comes as Italy’s far right-led government has reacted to a new wave of arriving migrants by threatening to organize a naval blockade of Tunisia and to step up repatriations. The French government, for its part, has beefed up patrols on its southern border to stop migrants in Italy from crossing over.

Macron greeted Francis on a wind-swept promenade overlooking Marseille’s old port, and helped him walk into the Palais du Pharo for the Mediterranean bishops meeting. With his wife by his side, the French leader listened as a young Italian volunteer working in Greece and the bishop of Tirana, Albania, who fled to Italy during Albania’s communist rule, spoke of the welcomes they received in foreign countries.

“May we let ourselves be moved by the stories of so many of our unfortunate brothers and sisters who have the right both to emigrate and not to emigrate, and not become closed in indifference,” Francis said after they spoke. “In the face of the terrible scourge of the exploitation of human beings, the solution is not to reject but to ensure, according to the possibilities of each, an ample number of legal and regular entrances.”

Macron’s centrist government has taken a harder line on migration and security issues after coming under criticism from French conservatives and the far right. With elections for the European Union’s parliament set for next year, Macron is pushing for the EU to strengthen its external borders and to be more efficient in deporting individuals who are denied entry.

Francis’ two-day trip was scheduled months ago, but it is taking place as mass migration to Europe is once again making headlines. Nearly 7,000 migrants who boarded smugglers boats in Tunisia came ashore on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa within a day last week, briefly outnumbering the resident population.

Nevertheless, Francis said talk of a migration “emergency” only fuels “alarmist propaganda” and stokes peoples’ fears.

“Those who risk their lives at sea do not invade, they look for welcome, for life” he said. “As for the emergency, the phenomenon of migration is not so much a short-term urgency, always good for fueling alarmist propaganda, 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 capable of coping with the objective difficulties.”

In addition to Macron, the pope’s audience on Saturday included European Commission Vice President Margarítis Schinás, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who has said France would not take in new migrants from Lampedusa.

After the bishops’ meeting ended, Macron and Francis held a private, half-hour meeting. The French president and first lady Brigitte Macron were also expected to attend Francis’ final Mass at the Marseille Velodrome later Saturday.

History’s first Latin American pope has made the plight of migrants a priority of his 10-year pontificate. For his first trip as pope, he traveled to Lampedusa to honor migrants who had drowned while attempting to cross the sea.

In the years since, he has celebrated Mass on the U.S.-Mexico border, met with Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees and, in a visible display of his commitment, brought home 12 Syrian Muslims on his plane after visiting a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece.

While no migrants have spoken at any of the formal events associated with Francis’ trip to Marseille, many were closely following the pope’s words and deeds. Some living in the city, which has a long tradition of multicultural hospitality, said Francis’ call for charity and paths to citizenship gave them hope that at least someone in Europe was sympathetic to their plight.

“It is a very beautiful opportunity for us,” said Francky Domingo, who is part of a Marseille-based association representing migrants seeking official identification documents. “We really want the pope to be our spokesperson to the politicians because the European policy on migration is very, very repressive for us migrants.”

Francois Thomas, head of the maritime rescue organization SOS Mediterranee, said he hoped Francis’ words would be heard in European capitals.

“We say it in a way that is maybe less emotional, but we hope that these words pronounced by Pope Francis will shake their conscience,” Thomas said. “You don’t leave people to drown in the Mediterranean. It is not possible.”

In his remarks, Francis also repeated his opposition to euthanasia, which he has long decried as a symptom of a “throwaway culture” which treats the elderly and infirm as dispensable. Listing euthanasia as a “social evil,” he criticized supporters of assisted suicide as providing “false pretenses of a supposedly dignified and ‘sweet’ death that is more ‘salty’ than the waters of the sea.”

The issue is current in France, where Macron is expected in the coming weeks to unveil a bill that would legalize end-of-life options in France. French media reported that he delayed the presentation of the measure until after the pope’s visit to keep the sensitive topic from interfering.

No details of the government’s proposal have been released, but several options are under consideration, including legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia for adult patients with incurable conditions under strict conditions that guarantee their free and informed consent.

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