Ariddia
22-01-2007, 22:17
Abbé Pierre, a French priest who was a famous voice in defending the rights of the homeless, and who founded the international organisation Emmaüs to help them, has died at the age of 94.
He was one of the most respected people in all of France, and is to receive national honours for his burial. He became famous in the 1950s, organising help for homeless people dying in the streets of Paris during a particularly cold winter, and he had continued ever since. Before that, he had been part of the Resistance during the Occupation, hiding several Jews and saving them from the Germans.
He was a Christian democrat member of parliament from 1945 to 1951 but his campaigning first achieved national attention with a radio broadcast made on a bitterly cold winter night in 1954.
"My friends -- help! A woman froze to death at three o'clock this morning," he said in the broadcast in Paris.
"The woman died on the pavement in Boulevard Sebastopol, clutching in her hands the paper which the day before had told her she was being expelled from her home," the priest went on.
"We need by tonight, and at the latest tomorrow, 5,000 blankets, 300 big American tents, and 200 cooking stoves."
Almost 40 years later, Abbe Pierre, in his trademark cassock and black beret, by then bent and frail, launched an almost identical appeal, this time directed at France's political leaders.
"Elected officials: it's time to act so that everyone has a lodging... France must build, it has the resources," he said in August 2003.
Full article here (http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/news/world/20070122-abbe-pierre-reax.html) (with video).
He was one of the most respected people in all of France, and is to receive national honours for his burial. He became famous in the 1950s, organising help for homeless people dying in the streets of Paris during a particularly cold winter, and he had continued ever since. Before that, he had been part of the Resistance during the Occupation, hiding several Jews and saving them from the Germans.
He was a Christian democrat member of parliament from 1945 to 1951 but his campaigning first achieved national attention with a radio broadcast made on a bitterly cold winter night in 1954.
"My friends -- help! A woman froze to death at three o'clock this morning," he said in the broadcast in Paris.
"The woman died on the pavement in Boulevard Sebastopol, clutching in her hands the paper which the day before had told her she was being expelled from her home," the priest went on.
"We need by tonight, and at the latest tomorrow, 5,000 blankets, 300 big American tents, and 200 cooking stoves."
Almost 40 years later, Abbe Pierre, in his trademark cassock and black beret, by then bent and frail, launched an almost identical appeal, this time directed at France's political leaders.
"Elected officials: it's time to act so that everyone has a lodging... France must build, it has the resources," he said in August 2003.
Full article here (http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/news/world/20070122-abbe-pierre-reax.html) (with video).