Hero of Paris who rescued child from balcony is given a job and French citizenship

A migrant dubbed ‘spiderman’ for his heroic rescue of a small boy dangling from a balcony is to be made a French citizen. Mamoudou Gassama from Mali was living illegally in Paris when he scaled an apartment building over the weekend to save a child hanging from a fifth-floor balcony.

The 22-year-old won widespread praise for his daring rescue, saying he did not stop to think before climbing to rescue the stricken four-year-old. 

Today Mamoudou met with President Emmanuel Macron at the presidential Elysee Palace where he was told he would be made a naturalised citizen. Mr Macron told him ‘bravo’, gave him a medal for ‘courage and devotion’ and said he would also be offered a role in the fire service.

Mamoudou scaled a building in Paris’ northern 18th district on Saturday, climbing from balcony to balcony until reaching the fifth floor, to rescue the child 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.

However, he wants to join his older brother, who has lived in France for decades. Mamoudou, dressed in blue jeans and white shirt, recounted his experience to the French leader. ‘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. ‘Thank God I saved him.’

He said he felt fear when he took the child into the apartment. ‘I was trembling,” he told Mr Macron. ‘Because this is an exceptional act… we are obviously, today, going to regularise all your papers,’ Mr Macron told him, ‘and if you wish we will start nationalisation procedures so you can become French.’ 

Mamoudou told Mr Macron that he arrived in Italy in 2014 after more than a year in Libya, where he was arrested and beaten, ‘but I wasn’t discouraged’.

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 Mamoudou’s actions were admirable. 

‘You saved a child. Without you, no one knows what would have become of him,’ the president said. ‘You need courage and the capability to do that.’ Working as a firefighter corresponds with his skills, Mr Macron said, and opened the door for him to join.

‘You have become an example because millions have seen you’ on social media, the president said. Local authorities in France said the boy’s parents were not at home at the time. 

The father has been questioned by police on suspicion of leaving his child unattended, judicial sources say. The mother was not in Paris at the time, it is believed. 

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo was among those to praise the 22-year-old’s heroism and said she had called him to thank him. She referred to him as the ‘Spiderman of the 18th’.