GDANSK, Poland (AFP)--In a move which has China fuming, French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama Saturday at a gathering of Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Gdansk, Poland.
"The Dalai Lama confirmed what I already knew, that he will not demand independence for Tibet and I told him how important I thought it was to pursue dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinese authorities," Sarkozy said after their meeting.
"The Dalai Lama also told me of his concerns over Tibet," Sarkozy said, adding that the 73-year-old "indicated how much he supported my visit to Beijing for the Olympic Games" opening ceremony. The president's decision to travel in August enflamed France's political opposition and human rights campaigners.
Sarkozy is the only European head of state to meet the Dalai Lama while holding the E.U.'s rotating presidency.
"I am free as the French president and the E.U. president, I have values and convictions. Let's not make things tense, the world doesn't need it and it doesn't correspond to reality," Sarkozy added.
Addressing China's outrage over his move to meet the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, Sarkozy said: "One must approach this calmly.
"The world needs an open China that participates in global governance. China needs a powerful Europe that gives work to Chinese enterprise," he said.
The French leader's decision to go ahead with the meeting has so far seen Beijing retaliate by scrapping a China-E.U. summit in France and warning multi-billion-dollar bilateral China-France trade deals could suffer.
"We have not noticed any kind of start of a boycott of our products," a French presidential official told AFP Saturday.
Commenting on whether E.U.-China relations and trade could suffer over his planned meeting with Sarkozy, the Dalai Lama on Friday remarked: "China also needs Europe.
"The original initiative of some pressure, sometimes is not followed by action," he said.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 06, 2008 15:49 ET (20:49 GMT)

Publié le 06 Décembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones