Footage shows Mamoudou Gassama, a Malian immigrant, climbing up to a fourth-floor balcony to bring the child to safety

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A young man has been hailed a hero after he scaled the facade of a building to save a four-year-old child hanging from a fourth-floor balcony.

Mamoudou Gassama took just seconds to reach the child in a rescue captured on film and viewed millions of times on social networks.

NubiΔΠ (@Adil__Brown) Les héros ne portent pas de cap. 👏👏 #Paris pic.twitter.com/QrOn3YB4Q7

The incident took place at about 8pm on Saturday in northern Paris.

Footage of the rescue shows Gassama, 22, pulling himself up the building’s storeys from balcony to balcony as a man on the fourth floor tries to hold on to the child by leaning across from a neighbouring balcony.

On reaching the fourth floor, Gassama puts one leg over the balcony before reaching out with his right arm and grabbing the child.

Firefighters arrived at the scene to find the child had already been rescued.

“Luckily, there was someone who was physically fit and who had the courage to go and get the child,” a fire service spokesman said.

Tracked down by reporters 24 hours after the rescue, Gassama said he had acted without thinking. “I saw all these people shouting, and cars sounding their horns. I climbed up like that and, thank God, I saved the child,” he said.

“I felt afraid when I saved the child ... [when] we went into the living room, I started to shake, I could hardly stand up, I had to sit down,” he added.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, praised him on Twitter for his “act of bravery” as well as phoning him personally to “thank him warmly”. She referred to him as the “Spider-Man of the 18th”, referring to the Paris district where the rescue happened.

“He explained to me that he had arrived from Mali a few months ago dreaming of building his life here,” she said. “I told him that his heroic act is an example to all citizens and that the city of Paris will obviously be very keen to support him in his efforts to settle in France,” she added.

Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) Un grand bravo à Mamoudou Gassama pour son acte de bravoure qui a permis de sauver hier soir la vie d'un enfant. J'ai eu plaisir à m'entretenir avec lui aujourd'hui par téléphone, afin de le remercier chaleureusement. https://t.co/DP5vQ1VZYh

The young man will next be honoured for his brave rescue by French president Emmanuel Macron who has invited him to the Elysée Palace on Monday, his office said.

According to initial inquiries by the authorities, the child’s parents were not at home at the time. The father was later held for questioning by police for having left his child unattended and was due in court later, a judicial source said. The child’s mother was not in Paris at the time.