French politicians give Dalai Lama's visit the cold shoulder

On Monday Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, starts a 12-day trip to France and in what could be interpreted as heavy-handed diplomacy, French politicians will all but shun him during his stay.

All right, so the visit is largely religious and the Dalai Lama himself is reported here in Monday’s press as not wanting to poison relations between Paris and Beijing, but at first sight it does seem rather extraordinary that he won’t be meeting a single member of the government.

After all the 73-year old former Nobel peace prize winner is widely respected and recognised as the incarnation worldwide of non—violence.

Take a closer look though, and there could be some other factors in play as to why he’s not being greeted officially.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has already said he won’t be meeting him, although in a neat move he’s sending his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, to attend the opening of a Buddhist temple on August 22.

While Sarkozy might appear not to want to anger the Chinese, whose ambassador to France said just last month there would be “grave consequences” if he met the Dalai Lama, he may also be trying to play a delicate behind-the-scenes diplomatic game.

That would go some way to explaining why he has so far felt unable to follow the example of other world leaders such as Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain’s prime minister Gordon Brown, or US president, George W. Bush all of whom have officially greeted the Dalai Lama on visits to their countries.

Sarkozy hasn’t left the door completely shut, and isn’t ruling out a meeting with the Dalai Lama at some unspecified date in the future – perhaps even by the end of this year. He’s also known to want to get the Chinese talking again at least to representatives of the Dalai Lama and that could well be what he’s working towards.

And a representative of the Dalai Lama in France, Wangpo Bashi, has intimated as much in his statements to the press here, confirming that a meeting between the two men during the Olympic games wouldn’t exactly be the most appropriate timing.

Discussions are still underway apparently to fix a meeting between the two men at some point, just not now.

So this is perhaps the reason nobody from the government is meeting him.

Not even the French foreign minister and world-renowned humanitarian, Bernard Kouchner, who has failed to pencil in a face-to-face with a man he has often in the past declared to be one of his friends. Nor has the usually outspoken junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, planned a meeting, even though she had previously said it might be a possibility.

The only political element of this obviously non-political visit, coming just as the Olympic games are in full swing, will be a meeting with members of one of the French chambers of parliament – the Senate – on Wednesday.

Apart from that, the Dalai Lama will visit Buddhist centres and give a series of conferences and teachings from the western French city of Nantes from August 15-20, which will be retransmitted in the Internet and translated into eight languages.

On August 22 he will open a Buddhist temple in the town of Roqueredonde in southern France.

There are around 600,000 practising Buddhists in France, three quarters of whom are of Asian origin according to the Buddhist Union of France

Since 1982 the Dalai Lama has been to France on at least 12 occasions, and the last time he was officially received by a French president was in 1993, by François Mitterrand.