PARIS (Reuters) - Abbe Pierre, a Roman Catholic priest who renounced wealth to campaign for the homeless and became one of France's most revered men, died on Monday aged 94.French leaders hailed the outspoken priest as a tireless anti-poverty crusader and champion for the outcasts of society.
President Jacques Chirac said France had lost "an immense figure, a conscience, a man who personified goodness."
Abbe Pierre was admitted to a Paris hospital on January 14 suffering from bronchitis. He died at 5.25 a.m. (0425 GMT) on Monday after failing to recover from the lung infection.
The frail priest, who spent most of his life protecting people dumped on the margins of Western life, was little known outside France but was cherished at home as a modern-day saint.
"Abbe Pierre represented the spirit of rebellion against misery, suffering, injustice and the strength of solidarity," Chirac's statement said.
Born in 1912, Henri-Antoine Groues was the fifth child of a silk merchant but gave up his comfortable life to become a monk.
He took his nickname Abbe Pierre -- "abbe" is a traditional title for priests -- as a resistance chaplain during World War Two, when he forged ID papers to smuggle refugees out of France.
He began campaigning for the homeless in 1949 and shot to fame in 1954 when he went on air to demand shelter for thousands of people threatened with death during a bitterly cold winter.
His appeal set off a wave of sympathy, and his Emmaus chain of hostels for the homeless now covers 41 countries.
NATIONAL ICON
His militant stance in favor of the poor made him a national icon in his trademark black cape, beret and walking stick, and put him consistently ahead of entertainers and politicians in popularity polls.
His militant stance in favor of the poor made him a national icon in his trademark black cape, beret and walking stick, and put him consistently ahead of entertainers and politicians in popularity polls.
Last year he came third in a television poll of the "Greatest Frenchman of All Time" behind World War Two leader Charles de Gaulle and the 19th-century scientist, Louis Pasteur.
The issue of homelessness returned to the top of the political agenda last month when a pressure group pitched tents for homeless people in Paris to draw attention to their plight.
Put on the defensive, the rightist government last week unveiled a bill that will give people a legal right to housing.
"(Abbe Pierre's) lifelong battle to help the most deprived sadly remains in the news this winter," said Segolene Royal, Socialist party candidate for the 2007 presidential election.
"The homeless should not feel orphaned. Abbe Pierre's long cry of anger should not be extinguished," she told RTL radio.
Abbe Pierre was a man of fierce convictions and compared at times to Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
But he was not always a model Roman Catholic. In 2005 he shocked the Church by speaking out for married and female priests and admitted to having broken his vows of chastity.