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Dalai Lama on week-long visit to France

Krzytof de Breza in Paris

Tibetan leader Dalai Lama arrived in Paris on a week-long visit to France. The leader will spend a large part of his visit in a small town in southern France, where he will give discourses to Buddhists and French citizens about Gautam Buddha's teachings.

The discourses will be delivered at a special camp organised by Golfe de Lion, an association that brings together five Buddhists organisations from southern France. The day-long lectures will have two discourses each day by the Dalai Lama. Nearly 10,000 persons are expected to attend the special camp, organised in Ledove, about 1000 km south of Paris.

At the end of the four-day course, the spiritual leader will address a public meeting on the path to enlightenment. On September 25, the Tibetan leader will return to Paris, where he has meetings with a French parliamentary group on Tibet. Besides meeting Senate members, Dalai Lama will address another public rally just outside Paris.

The Dalai Lama will not be received by any senior politician, perhaps since France is eager not to annoy the Chinese. The French have been keen on expanding commercial relations with China and have signed crucial multi-billion dollar deals with the communist nation in the last few years. China has also emerged as one of the biggest customers for French defence exports, the third largest export item in France.

Quite like the United States, Buddhism has caught the fancy of influential persons in French social and cultural circles, especially in the south, where several Buddhism-related publications are printed.

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