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Pope Francis<\/a> met with President Emmanuel Macron of France on Saturday on the second day of a whirlwind trip to Marseille, a port city in the country\u2019s south where the pontiff issued a forceful condemnation<\/a> of the world\u2019s indifference toward the deaths of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.<\/p>\n Thousands of police officers blanketed the city early Saturday and blocked traffic around the Palais du Pharo, a 19th-century palace overlooking the city\u2019s old port. Mr. Macron and Francis met there, even though the pope\u2019s trip was not an official state visit.<\/p>\n Both are attending the closing session of the Mediterranean Meetings<\/a>, a weeklong gathering of bishops and other representatives. Mr. Macron and the pope are to meet again one on one after the closing session and before a giant Mass later in the afternoon at Marseille\u2019s soccer stadium.<\/p>\n The Rev. Vito Impellizzeri, a professor at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Sicily, who attended the gathering, said the pope was coming to help shift perceptions of the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt should not simply be the tomb and clash of civilizations,\u201d he said, but also \u201ca space of reciprocity and encounters.\u201d<\/p>\n Matteo Bruni, a Vatican spokesman, told reporters earlier this week that the pope would also discuss the war in Ukraine and environmental issues in Marseille.<\/p>\n But the pope has focused much of his trip so far on the plight of migrants attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing<\/a> from North and sub-Saharan Africa to Europe. On Friday, at a memorial for sailors and migrants lost at sea that sits on a hill overlooking Marseille\u2019s glittering harbor, he said the world was \u201cat a crossroads of civilization,\u201d caught between a culture of \u201cfraternity\u201d or one of \u201cindifference.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis beautiful sea has become a huge cemetery, where many brothers and sisters are deprived even of the right to a grave,\u201d Francis said. \u201cBeing buried at sea is the only dignity given to them.\u201d<\/p>\n In a meeting that was closed to the press, the pope met privately early Saturday with people \u201cin a situation of economic hardship\u201d at a charity house in the center of Marseille, according to the Vatican.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Tens of thousands are expected to line the streets later in the day as Francis is driven to the V\u00e9lodrome, the soccer stadium in Marseille \u2014 where devotion to the local team<\/a> is a faith of its own.<\/p>\n Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, the archbishop of Marseille, who helped orchestrate the pope\u2019s trip, said in an interview with the daily Le Parisien this week<\/a> that Francis had told him, \u201cIf I go to Paris, I will see protocol; in Marseille, I will see the people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why we chose the V\u00e9lodrome,\u201d Cardinal Aveline said. \u201cAt the stadium, it\u2019s like going into the home of each Marseillais.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cMarseille attracts him because it\u2019s a periphery, between Europe and the Mediterranean, Orient and Occident, and in particular because it is a place of fracture.\u201d<\/p>\n Francis has long preferred traveling to the world\u2019s fringes<\/a> rather than its power centers.<\/p>\n Marseille, a gritty, sprawling city of about 870,000, is plagued by pockets of extreme poverty<\/a>, strained social services and deadly drug-related violence<\/a>. But it is also one of France\u2019s oldest and most cosmopolitan cities, a predominantly working-class patchwork of ethnic and religious communities that has been shaped by waves of immigration from Europe and Africa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a city that suits the pope,\u201d said Isabelle de Gaulmyn, a top editor at La Croix, France\u2019s leading Catholic newspaper.<\/p>\n Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Rome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n