Migrant made French citizen after dramatic rescue of child

A MIGRANT from Mali lauded as a hero for scaling an apartment building in Paris to save a young child dangling from a balcony will be rewarded for his “exceptional act” with papers to legalise his stay, French president Emmanuel Macron announced.

He said 22-year-old Mamoudou Gassama will also be given citizenship if he wants and a job as a firefighter.

“Bravo,” Mr Macron said to Mr Gassama during a face-toface meeting in a gilded room of the presidential Elysee Palace that ended with the awarding of a medal from the prefecture for “courage and devotion”.

Mr Gassama’s extraordinary feat went viral on social media, where he has been dubbed “Spiderman” for climbing up five floors, from balcony to balcony, and whisking a four-year-old boy to safety on Saturday night as a crowd watched in horror on the ground below the building in Paris’ northern 18th district.

The young man said he has papers to legally stay in Italy, where he arrived in Europe after crossing the Mediterranean following a long, rough stay in Libya.

However, he wants to join his older brother, who has lived in France for decades.

Mr Gassama, dressed in blue jeans and white shirt, recounted what happened at around 8pm on Saturday when he and friends saw a young child dangling from a fifth-floor balcony. “I ran. I crossed the street to save him,” he told Mr Macron. He said he did not think twice, adding: “When I started to climb, it gave me courage to keep climbing.” God helped me too, he said. Mr Gassama continued, saying he felt fear when he took the child into the safety of the apart- ment. “I was trembling,” he told Mr Macron.

The president told him: “Because this is an exceptional act... we are obviously, today, going to regularise all your papers, and if you wish we will start nationalisation procedures so you can become French.”

Mr Macron is toughening the nation’s approach to immigration, and stressed that not all who make the treacherous journey to Europe can be welcomed, but that Mr Gassama’s actions were admirable.

“You saved a child. Without you, no one knows what would