Elysee PalaceFirst things first: if you haven’t seen the video of 22-year-old Mamoudou Gassama using an extraordinary level of upper-body strength to rescue a child hanging from a balcony, pump this immediately into your eyeballs:
Les héros ne portent pas de cap. 👏👏 #Paris pic.twitter.com/QrOn3YB4Q7
— 🏺 (@Nefertemkhoure) May 27, 2018
Gassama undertook the extraordinary rescue in Paris on Saturday, after noticing a commotion outside while he was watching a soccer game at a restaurant.
Obviously, the ridiculous feat garnered a lot of attention, earning Gassama praise and a phone call from Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, and an invite to Elysee Palace to have a chat with French president Emmanuel Macron. At the palace, Gassama was awarded a certificate and a gold medal for bravery.
Gassama, an undocumented immigrant from Mali, was also offered French citizenship by Macron, in addition to a job with a French fire brigade.
Speaking to BFM TV, Gassama said he just acted without thinking:
I like children, I would have hated to see him getting hurt in front of me. I ran and I looked for solutions to save him and thank God I scaled the front of the building to the balcony.
What a bloody legend.
The citizenship move is a bit of an interesting one, consider Macron’s very hardline stance on immigration, but a good outcome for Gassama (and that baby), nonetheless.