Recent arrival an instant hero in Paris
France is hailing him a national hero. He’s had praise heaped on him by the mayor of Paris. And a personal invite to visit the French President, Emmanuel Macron. And he’s only been in the country a few weeks.
Malian migrant Mamoudou Gassama, 22, didn’t hesitate when he saw a toddler dangling from the fourth floor of a high-rise building on Sunday.
The child was hanging by his hands from the balcony, with another man grimly trying to hold on from an awkward angle. It took Gassama just minutes to physically hoist himself from balcony to balcony, securing the toddler and hoisting him to safety.
“I saw all these people shouting, and cars sounding their horns . . . I did it because it was a child,” Gassama told the newspaper Le Parisian.
But Gassama told AFP that after the child was safe, “I started to shake, I could hardly stand up, I had to sit down.”
The Paris fire department praised his response: “Luckily, there was someone who was physically fit and who had the courage to go and get the child.”
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who rang Gassama to thank him, called him “Spider-Man of the 18th”. The number is a reference to the district of Paris where the rescue took place.
“He explained to me that he had arrived from Mali a few months ago dreaming of building his life here. I replied that his heroic gesture was an example for all citizens and that the City of Paris will obviously be keen to support him in his efforts to settle in France,” she said
Parisians have launched an online petition urging immigration authorities to expedite his application for residency.
Media claim the child’s parents were not at home at the time of the incident. The father is reportedly being questioned by police. The mother was out of the city.