From Time.com
“The people of France agree on very little, but for decades one touchstone of national feeling has been respect and love for a frail, bearded, beret-wearing force of nature named Abbé Pierre. The death on Monday, at the age of 94, of France’s “voice of the voiceless” has inserted a pause in a divisive presidential election campaign as France pays homage to a man of unerring courage and compassion; a man who embodied the best of French traditions.

In a land of foxes, Abbé Pierre was a hedgehog. His one big idea: that the plight of the poor and homeless calls for constant outrage and action. His organization, Emmaüs, created in 1949 to enlist the homeless themselves in the work of building shelters and a future, is now present in 35 countries. Every public figure in France has lamented his passing. President Jacques Chirac said that France “loses an immense figure, a conscious, an incarnation of goodness.”

The offspring of a well-off family in Lyons, Henri Grouès was inspired by…”

[Read the full article]

Tags: france, french, Abbé+Pierre, Emmaüs, homeless, voice+of+the+voiceless