Hidden Dalai Lama speech causes row

The Dalai Lama has addressed politicians of both houses in a closed-door session.

Senate president Christian Poncelet decided to shut out the public and media for fear of upsetting the Chinese government who had expressed anger at the visit.

The decision has been criticised by many MPs including fellow UMP party member Lionnel Luca who said it was ‘shameful’.

“The Senate and National Assembly received Ingrid Betancourt with great pomp and ceremony but we have made the Dalai Lama go via the back door,” he said.

The speech was the only outward political event of the Dalai Lama’s visit. While the president’s wife Carla Bruni will be present at the opening of a new Buddhist temple in Roqueredonde in the Hérault on August 22 she carries no official state role.

A spokesman for the Dalai Lama said a meeting between the Tibetan spiritual leader and the French president during the Olympics would be interpreted as a provocation by the Chinese government which would only result in a hardening of their stance against the leader.

The Dalai Lama will also give a series of lectures between August 15-20 in Nantes.

Socialist Party spokesman Frédéric Lefebvre said the presence of the president’s wife at the temple opening was “a pseudo-diplomatic mission to the Dalai Lama” that was “a cover-up for the grave mistake” of Sarkozy’s visit to Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games.

France has 770,000 Buddhists, three quarters of whom are of east-Asian origin, according to the Union Bouddhiste de France.