Pope Francis has said it repeatedly: He did not come to France, but to Marseille. Still, the French must not take offense, since, as he has emphasized, it has been his firm resolution to visit no “great European country.” It matters little that he was received eagerly and warmly by the prime minister and the president of the French Republic, that he was protected every second by both local and national police forces as well as by French soldiers, or that, moreover, the city of Marseille is now the French city that depends most on the goodwill and the resources of the French state; for him this nation, like other European nations, could never be the object of his care nor the subject of his address. As far as he is concerned it does not exist; his world and his motives for action do not extend so far. “Marseille and the Mediterranean”—this is his constituency.