Pope Francis headed Friday to Marseille for a two-day visit focused on the Mediterranean and migration, bringing a message of tolerance amid bitter debate over how Europe manages asylum seekers.
Marseille was decked out in the yellow and white colours of the Vatican for the first visit by a pope to France's second city for 500 years, where 100,000 people are expected to turn out to see the pontiff in his popemobile on Saturday.
The desperate conditions that cause many people to leave their homes for a new life, and the risks they take to do so, have been a key theme Francis' decade as head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He underwent hernia surgery in June, less than two years after having colon surgery, and routinely uses a wheelchair due to a troublesome knee.Despite the decline in France of Catholicism, the once dominant faith, the pope's visit has sparked huge enthusiasm, with almost 60,000 people expected at a mass on Saturday afternoon.
He will head to the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, a symbolic monument overlooking the city, for a prayer with local clergy on Friday afternoon. But France, amid wrangling over a draft law governing migrant arrivals there, said it would not accept anyone from the island.
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