Pope urges Europe against treating migrants as invaders

The pontiff made the comments on Saturday hours before he led a mass in Marseille’s main stadium in a gigantic event.

Pope Francis celebrates mass at the Velodrome stadium in Marseille. Picture: AFP

The Pope has urged European governments to welcome migrants instead of viewing them as invaders, striding into in a sensitive debate again inflamed by mass arrivals on the second day of his visit to France’s Mediterranean port of Marseille.

The pontiff made the comments on Saturday hours before he led a mass in Marseille’s main stadium in a gigantic event due to be attended by French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Those who risk their lives at sea do not invade, they look for welcome,” Francis said in a speech closing a conference of bishops and young people from around the Mediterranean.

Migration is “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,” Francis added.

Noting the risk to the lives of migrants if they were not taken to safety, he warned against turning “the Mediterranean, the mare nostrum, from the cradle of civilisation into the mare mortuum, the graveyard of dignity.”

His intervention comes as the migration debate has been stoked by mass arrivals on Lampedusa last week.

AFP