LOURDES: Thousands of Catholic pilgrims gathered on Tuesday for the traditional open-air mass in Lourdes during Assumption celebrations, as security remained tight across France after last week’s car attack against a group of soldiers.

“I have heard of lots of tragedies, attacks,” Claire Emmanuelle of Paris said. “So we’ve come to entrust the entire world to the Virgin Mary”.

About 25,000 pilgrims from across Europe, the Middle East and Asia braved rainy skies to attend the annual four-day pilgrimage at the shrine, one of the biggest dates in the Christian calendar, marking the ascent into Heaven of the Virgin Mary.

In keeping with tougher security protocols in terror-scarred France, 300 police officers and soldiers were deployed to protect the worshippers, who were searched upon entry to the site.

About 30 security force members surrounded the sanctuary itself — where Mary is said to have appeared to a shepherd girl in 1858 — and many of the streets around it were closed to traffic.

While the security apparatus was reduced from last year — when 500 police and soldiers were mobilised a month after the Bastille Day attack in Nice and the murder of a priest, Jacques Hamel — authorities preferred to remain vigilant.

“We are still at a heightened threat level and it is widespread on the national territory,” the town’s governor Beatrice Lagarde told reporters on Friday, as she explained security details for the celebrations.

“Even if Lourdes is not necessarily targeted, we are still taking it into account”.

France has been under a state of emergency since the November 2015 attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead and has seen a string of attacks from the militant Islamic State group.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2017