Abbé Pierre champion of the homeless: the 'conscience of France' bids adieu - by John Lichfield
Described by many as the modern Saint Francis of Assisi, Abbé Pierre died yesterday at the age of 94. But his reputation as the most popular man in France will live on.
Abbé Pierre, a former Resistance hero and then campaigner for the homeless and dispossessed, stopped being chosen as France's most popular man five years ago. He asked for his name to be withdrawn from the shortlist. It was about time, he said, that France found a younger hero. He was succeeded, variously, by Zinedine Zidane, footballer, and Yannick Noah, tennis-player turned pop-singer.
He was a saint for our times: a secular saint, who detested his celebrity but knew how to exploit it. He represented, to many French people, all that was best about the Catholic church, while campaigning against the church's teachings on contraception, homosexuality and priestly chastity. "Anyone who refuses to use a condom is a swine," he once said - not the usual message from the pulpits of France. He caused another rumpus - and premature allegations of senility - 11 years ago by defending a philosopher, and personal friend, who had written a book attacking Israel and questioning the Holocaust. He later apologised.
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