PARIS: France will give residence papers to an illegal immigrant from Mali who scaled the facade of a Paris apartment block to save a boy who was about to fall from a fourth-floor balcony, President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.Video shows Mamoudou Gassama, 22, risking his life on Sunday as he climbed up the balconies to rescue the four-year-old who is clinging to a railing and glancing at the ground below, while horrified onlookers watched.The video went viral and Gassama, who has been nicknamed "Spider-Man" for reaching the boy in time, was swiftly granted a meeting at the Elysee Palace. "I did it because it was a child," French newspaper Le Parisien quoted Gassama as saying."I climbed. Thank God I saved him. "Macron congratulated Gassama for "an exceptional act" and said France would give him a job in the emergency services. "We’ll obviously be setting all your papers straight and if you wish it, we will start the process of naturalisation so that you can become French," he added.Gassama told Macron he tried to cross the Mediterranean in March 2014 to reach Italy, but was caught by police. Europe has faced a migrant crisis since 2015 following wars in Libya and Syria and more than 1 million people from Africa and the Middle East have tried to reach the continent via Turkey or by sea.
05-29-2018, 11:24 AM
France makes Malian ?hero? legal for scaling building to save child
العرض العادي
