When Abbé Pierre died in 2007 he was mourned around the world by the great and the good. A champion of the homeless for decades, and a committed campaigner against nuclear weapons and colonisation, the 94-year-old Catholic priest was regarded as one of the great figures of the second half of the 20th century.
Abbé Pierre – real name Henri Grouès - was accorded a day of "national homage" in his native France, and among the mourners at his funeral ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral were President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, the mayor or the city and a host of celebrities.
