(28 May 2018) French President Emmanuel Macron met on Monday with a migrant from Mali lauded as a hero for scaling an apartment building to save a young child dangling from a balcony.
Macron said 22-year-old Mamoudou Gassama would be rewarded for his "exceptional act" with papers to legalise his stay, citizenship if he wants and a job as a firefighter.
Macron met Gassama during a one-on-one meeting in a gilded room of the presidential Elysee Palace that ended with the awarding of a medal and certificate from the prefecture for "courage and devotion."
Afterwards, Gassama said he was happy to have met the president.
His brother Diaby also spoke on Gassama's behalf, telling reporters that he had been watching the football Champions' League final in a cafe on Saturday night, when he saw the child was in danger.
Gassama's feat went viral on social media, where he has been dubbed "Spiderman" for climbing up five floors, from balcony to balcony, and whisking the four-year-old boy to safety as a crowd screamed at the foot of 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 after a long, rough stay in Libya. But he wants to join his older brother, who has lived in France for decades.
The French president 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 Gassama's actions were admirable.
The French media reported that the father of the small child was detained for alleged parental neglect.
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