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MARSEILLE, France, April 5 (AFP) – The mayor of France’s second-largest city of Marseille has offered his 16,000 city officials a half-day off to watch Pope John Paul II’s funeral on Friday, officials said Tuesday.
A giant TV screen will be installed inside one of the port city’s cathedrals, and perhaps in another church, so that residents of Marseille can watch live coverage of the funeral, officials said.
Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, a member of President Jacques Chirac’s ruling centre-right UMP party and also a senator, will be part of Chirac’s delegation attending the funeral at the Vatican.
© AFP
Subject: French News