Pope
Francis has called on European nations to show greater tolerance
towards migrants during a visit to the southern French city of
Marseille.
Speaking
at a meeting of bishops and young people from Mediterranean countries,
the pontiff said "those who risk their lives at sea do not invade".
French President Emmanuel Macron was among the audience for the address.
It comes as the migration debate has been reignited by mass arrivals on the Italian island of Lampedusa last week.
France's
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who greeted the Pope upon his
arrival in Marseille on Friday, said the country would not welcome any
migrants coming from the island.
Some
8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and
Wednesday last week, according to the UN's International Organization
for Migration.
Pope
Francis said on Saturday that migration was not an emergency, but
rather "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".
"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".
He
also called for "an ample number of legal and regular entrances" of
migrants, particularly those fleeing war, hunger and poverty, rather
than on "preservation of one's own well-being".
The
Pope's remarks echoed his message on Friday that it was a duty of
humanity to rescue migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean.
The
86-year-old warned governments against the "fanaticism of indifference"
and "paralysis of fear", saying that "people who are at risk of
drowning when abandoned on the waves must be rescued".
Thousands of people lined the streets of Marseille to watch him pass through the city.
His
official business in Marseille was to take part in the closing session
of the Mediterranean Meetings event, which covered migration, as well as
economic inequality and climate change.
Francis's visit marked the first visit by a pope to Marseille, France's second-largest city, in 500 years.
He
attended a private meeting with President Macron and will celebrate
Mass in the Velodrome stadium before travelling back to Rome later on
Saturday.
