Pope Francis in Marseille: A Guilty Blindness

Francis lives a comfortable life in Rome. He doesn't care about the 'painful day-to-day reality of European citizens who have to absorb the migratory flow.'

From The European Conservative

By Hélène De Lauzun

There is a yawning gap between the irenic aspirations defended by the Pope and the painful day-to-day reality of European citizens who have to absorb the migratory flow.

At a time when the influx of migrants into the Mediterranean has never been so massive, as illustrated by the situation on the Italian island of Lampedusa, which in recent weeks has seen an unprecedented arrival on its soil of several thousand immigrants from Africa, the Pope has openly taken a stance by saying that we cannot speak of a migratory crisis. Migrants “do not invade,” he insisted in his speeches, calling on France and Europe to face up to their “responsibilities.” For many European citizens—whether Catholic or not, French or Italian—such comments are not acceptable. 

Several leading figures from France’s right-wing political class have spoken out to criticise the pontiff’s speech and distance themselves from the Holy Father’s diagnosis. Marion Maréchal, head of the list for Zemmour’s Reconquête party for the European elections, reaffirmed her attachment to the Catholic faith on television, while condemning the pope’s view of the migration issue, accusing him of “doing too much.” “Pope Francis has no business playing politics,” she declared on BFM TV before the pontiff’s arrival on French soil.

Jordan Bardella, President of the Rassemblement National and head of his party’s list for the forthcoming elections, echoed the same sentiments. Claiming to be a non-believer, he denounced an “Argentinian pope” who is totally unaware of the realities of European migration. What’s more, he accused him of playing a harmful role in encouraging migrants to make the long journey from Africa to Europe. On Sunday, September 24th, he said, also on BFM TV:

When he says that Marseille is a haven of peace, allow me, like all French people, to take offence and say that he doesn’t know Marseille. He has chosen to use a political discourse, but my role is to remind him that when we call for mass immigration, when we call for the unconditional and unlimited opening up of all our borders, then we bear a responsibility for the belief and the El Dorado that these people from the continent have created for themselves.

Jordan Bardella then added that he preferred “the wisdom of Benedict XVI, who said that states have the right to regulate migratory flows.”

Both Maréchal’s and Bardella’s reactions rightly highlight the yawning gap between the irenic aspirations defended by the Pope and the painful day-to-day reality of European citizens who have to absorb the migratory flow. Clearly, the Pope lives in a world that does not exist and speaks of a reality that he does not know. The Pope’s argument about the indifference of Western societies seems hard to sustain when you consider the colossal resources deployed by countries like France and Italy to rescue migrants at sea, welcome them, care for them—and, more often than not, keep them on their soil, because very few of the thousands who land end up being refused asylum. To give a few figures, France devotes almost €2 billion a year from its budget to asylum, with appropriations constantly increasing over the last few years. 

The Pope’s description of Marseille as a “creative mosaic,” for example, is appealing, but it’s just as hard to accept when you realise that France’s second-largest metropolitan area has suffered for years from an appalling reputation for insecurity, crime and filth—the result of uncontrolled immigration that has totally transformed its once-attractive face. Journalist Gabrielle Cluzel of Boulevard Voltaire reminded us on Twitter that, while Marseille can pride itself on its memorial to migrants, it is also known for a plaque in Saint-Charles station commemorating the deaths of two young girls, Laure and Mauranne, brutally murdered in 2017 by a Tunisian migrant who should never have been on French territory—the other side of immigration, which Pope Francis deliberately denies. 

It is also curious to note that those who are usually the first to denigrate the Christian roots of France and Europe or to castigate the retrograde nature of the Catholic Church, namely the representatives of the far-left parties, have been the first to sing praises since Pope Francis’ trip to Marseille. Sandrine Rousseau, an ecologist MP, Clémentine Autain, a communist MP, and Antoine Léaument, a member of the France Insoumise party accustomed to Robespierrist declarations, are lauding the Pope in the media and calling on Emmanuel Macron to listen more closely to the pontiff in his policies. There’s a reversal of fortunes here that we might find comical—or distressing. 

The Pope’s statements are “making a mess.” After all, isn’t that Pope Francis’ signature? But as we know only too well, the mess they create has more negative than positive effects. On the thorny issue of migration, Francis’ out-of-touch discourse is helping to alienate many people from the Catholic Church, who do not expect him to speak in a way that is far removed from reality and overly political. 

In the light of the events in Lampedusa and Marseille, it is impossible in France not to think of the prophetic novel written by the writer Jean Raspail fifty years ago, Le Camp des Saints, in which he described the apocalyptic arrival of migrants on the beaches of Provence, causing a fragile and moribund European society to teeter on the brink of collapse. Ironically, Raspail at the time portrayed a globalist pope exhorting from his plane the unconditional integration of these unfortunate people. But at the same moment, deaf to these aerial gesticulations, on the beaches where these cohorts of poor wretches had come to be stranded, the author described a handful of monks bending over them to confer baptism on them, against everything and everyone. This is the urgency we would have liked the pope to talk to us about in Marseille.