Pope Faces Down Growing Backlash Against Migrants in Europe
Pope Francis is visiting Marseille, France, on Friday to advocate for refugees amid an antimigration political backlash in Europe. The pope, who has made migration a signature issue of his decadelong pontificate, will attend a meeting of Catholic bishops and young people of different faiths from around the Mediterranean to address common social problems and particularly the challenge of migration.
That challenge “must be faced together, insofar as it is essential for the future of all, which will be prosperous only if built on fraternity, putting in first place human dignity, concrete persons, above all the neediest," Francis said last Sunday. But political leaders around Europe are focused on finding ways to clamp down on migration across the Mediterranean, which has become one of the world’s most frequented—and most dangerous—routes for migrants from poor or war-torn countries in Africa, the Middle East and farther afield.
“Nobody with his stature is sticking up for migrants the way the pope is," said Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, a migration expert at the U.K.’s University of Kent. French President Emmanuel Macron, with whom the pope is scheduled to meet in Marseille on Saturday, is under pressure from the political right to take a harder line on migration since riots in June and July were sparked by the killing of a youth of North African origin.
Italy’s right-wing government, which came to power last year with a strongly anti-immigration platform, announced plans this week to beef up the detention and deportation of migrants who don’t qualify for asylum. Anti-immigration parties are in power or on the rise in much of the continent.
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