French citizenship for Mali ‘Spiderman’

Paris, May 28

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A Mali migrant who saved a four-year-old child hanging from a fourth-floor Paris balcony after scaling the building with his bare hands was honoured by French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday and offered citizenship.

Two days after his daring Spiderman-style rescue — viewed millions of times online — Mamoudou Gassama was received by Macron at the presidential palace.

“All the (Gassama’s) documents will be put in order,” Macron told the sporty 22-year-old who has become a national hero, referring to his immigration status. At the meeting, Macron gave Gassama a medal for bravery and also proposed that he join the French fire service.

“I was not thinking of anything. I went straight up,” Gassama, who arrived in France in September 2017,  told Macron while recounting the episode. “Bravo,” Macron replied.

Gassama lept into action Saturday evening on seeing a child dangling in mid-air from a balcony half-way up an apartment block.

The video shows him pulling himself up from balcony to balcony as a man on the fourth floor tries to hold on to the child by leaning across from a neighbouring balcony. On reaching the fourth floor, Gassama throws one leg over the balcony before reaching out with his right arm and grabbing the child.

Firefighters arrived at the scene to find the child had already been rescued. 

According to initial inquiries by the authorities, the child’s parents were not home at the time. The father was held for questioning by police for having left his child unattended. The child’s mother was not in Paris at the time. — AFP