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Dalai Lama's expected visit to France off

Reuters

The Dalai Lama, arrives at Narita Airport in Japan on 31 October 2008. The Dalai Lama is on a week-long visit to Japan.Reuters/Kyodo/Japan

An expected visit to France by the Dalai Lama next month, during which the French government said he would meet President Nicolas Sarkozy, will not take place, French weekly Journal du Dimanche said on Saturday.

“As of today, there is no visit to France planned for December and I am not planning to come during that period either,” Mathieu Ricard, the Dalai Lama’s French interpreter, told the newspaper in an article released ahead of publication.

The Tibetan spiritual leader last visited France in August but did not meet Sarkozy during his two-week stay, which coincided with the Olympic Games in Beijing.

The government said the two would meet on Dec. 10 at a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize winners held to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in Paris in 1948.

The Journal du Dimanche said the Dalai Lama had been disappointed by Sarkozy’s attitude during his visit and said he had received no official invitation to Paris.

But it also quoted the French official in charge of organising the meeting, Francois Zimeray, as saying the Dalai Lama “travels less at the moment and that’s the reason that the issue of the invitation did not arise.”

The Dalai Lama was hospitalised with abdominal pain in August and underwent gallstone surgery last month in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamshala.

Copyright © 2008 Thomson Reuters

Published in Reuters.com