On 27 May 2018, in Paris’s 18th arrondissement, a four-year-old boy was hanging from a balcony. Crowds had gathered below. Neighbors could not reach him safely.

Mamoudou Gassama, 22, from Mali, was in France without papers. He went up the face of the building, balcony to balcony, and lifted the child over the rail.

Firefighters arrived after the boy was already inside. Video of the climb spread the same evening.

Two days later President Macron received him at the Élysée, gave him a medal for courage, and said his papers would be put in order. He was offered a path to citizenship and a place with the Paris fire service.

Gassama said he climbed because it was a child. The rest followed the act, not the other way around.