Sarkozy will not meet Dalai Lama
78% of French want meeting with exiled Tibetan leader, China did not. Carla Bruni to attend opening of Buddhist temple.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy will not meet Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama when he visits France next week.
The Dalai Lama's office said that "no such meeting is planned and we have not asked for such a meeting."
However a spokesman for the The Elysée Palace said that on August 22 Carla Bruni-Sarkozy would take part in a ceremony with the Dalai Lama to open a new Buddhist temple in the capital.
A representative of the Chinese government in Paris had warned of ‘serious consequences’ to relations between the two countries if a meeting between the president and the Dalai Lama took place.
Diplomat Kong Quan was summoned by foreign minister Bernard Kouchner to explain the comments that a meeting “would run counter to the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.”
My Quan said: "The Dalai Lama is not only a spiritual leader, but also and above all someone who has separatist activities and who leads a government in exile.”
A survey by pollsters Ifop for magazine Paris Match last month showed 78% of French people supported a meeting between the two men.
Relations with China have been turbulent, reaching a low after violence broke out during the parade of the Olympic flame through Paris.
A written apology by the president to a Chinese athlete injured in the attack and a visit by former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to the country helped to thaw relations.
Travel agencies in China were urged to boycott France as a tourist destination leading to a 70% drop in visitors from the country.
President Sarkozy is due to fly to Beijing tomorrow for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games where France will represent EU countries.
In an interview with the Xinhua Chinese news agency the president said that if organising the Olympic Games was a sport China would get the gold medal, adding that the event symbolised the China of the 21st Century - ‘a modern power with a global reach’.
He said there was a “historic, indestructible, unshakeable friendship between Paris and Peking.”
