France offers citizenship to Malian immigrant who scaled building to save child

PARIS - France on Monday offered citizenship to an illegal immigrant from Mali who scaled the facade of a Paris apartment block to save a boy who was about to fall from a fourth-floor balcony, President Emmanuel Macron said.

Video shows Mamoudou Gassama, 22, risking his life on Sunday as he climbed up the balconies to rescue the four-year-old whois clinging to a railing and glancing at the ground below, while horrified onlookers watched.

The video went viral and Gassama, who has been nicknamed"Spider-Man" for reaching the boy in the nick of time, was swiftly granted a meeting at the Elysee Palace.

"I did it because it was a child," French newspaper Le Parisien quoted Gassama as saying. "I climbed .... Thank God Isaved him."

Macron congratulated Gassama for "an exceptional act" and said France would give him a job in the emergency services.

"We'll obviously be setting all your papers straight and if you wish it, we will start the process of naturalization so that you can become French," he added.

Ministers said the citizenship process would be sped up,although Gassama can't legally be granted it right away.

As elsewhere in Europe, immigration from Africa and the Middle East has fixated French public opinion in the last few years, fueling the rise of far-right parties such as the National Front.