FRANCE PERSPECTIVE

Paris, July 4, 2026. Lampedusa, a 20-square-kilometer island positioned between Tunisia and Malta, reclaimed on Saturday the symbolic significance that had made it, thirteen years earlier, the inaugural destination of Pope Francis. Pope Leo XIV, 70, born in Chicago, celebrated Mass before 4,000 worshippers, calling for a Europe capable of 'welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating migrants.' The timing was deliberate: July 4, the 250th anniversary of American independence, allowed the pontiff to simultaneously address a letter to the United States urging America to 'welcome' its immigrants.

French media closely followed the visit, with RFI deploying a special correspondent. The day began with prayers at numbered graves of unidentified migrants, then a wreath-laying ceremony. Leo XIV held the hands of children from a migrant family, standing beside their pregnant mother before the 'Gate of Europe,' a monument dedicated to victims of Mediterranean crossings.

In his homily, the pontiff attributed Mediterranean deaths to triple responsibility: 'decisions made and decisions not made,' corruption in origin countries, and 'a global economic system that breeds poverty and exclusion, fear that fuels prejudice and contempt.' Lampedusa, 145 kilometers from Tunisian shores, bears memory of the October 2013 shipwreck where over 360 people perished, the worst disaster in its history.

The visit occurred amid tense politics. Two weeks earlier, the European Union had adopted new migration regulations authorizing increased detention and the creation of retention centers outside the bloc's borders. Leo XIV, who had previously denounced mass expulsions in the United States under the Trump administration and visited the Canaries the preceding month, urged Europe to 'address the crisis organically, embedding rescue operations within a strategic long-term plan,' advocating for safe and legal immigration pathways.

French press emphasizes continuity with Francis, who pioneered this path in 2013. This American papacy emerges, in Paris' view, as a dissenting voice against Washington's and Brussels' restrictive migration policies, carrying a message of 'epochal responsibility' before Lampedusa's 6,000 residents—an island that has become the defining image of Mediterranean crisis despite itself.