Dalai Lama

Tibetan spiritual leader / Meeting August 2008

On August 22, 2008, the Dalai Lama met the wife of the Head of the French State at the Lérab Ling Buddhist temple in the Hérault region of France. A few days after the kick-off of the 29th Olympic Games in Beijing, the interview took place in driving rain with Rama Yade and Bernard Kouchner, who also came to participate in the inauguration and blessing of Europe’s largest Buddhist temple on the Larzac plateau. Before 2000 people — including some 400  on a retreat at the Temple and a few media figures (Juliette Binoche, Inès de la Fressange, Maud Fontenoy) — Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was passed the “kata”, the traditional white scarf worn as a sign of welcome in Tibet.  The Dalai Lama “is always welcome in France”, said Bernard Kouchner after a private interview. “Mixing up of roles”, thundered the French Socialist party, “Madame Sarkozy should not be involved in this!” snapped Robert Ménard (Reporters Sans Frontières). On December 6, 2008 Nicolas Sarkozy also met Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th dalai-lama, who has been in exile in Dharamsala, India, for 50 years. Two days later on December 8, during his speech within the framework of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Nicolas Sarkozy said that it was a “duty for a French President” to respond to “an invitation from a Nobel Peace Prize winner” (1989). “Whatever his or her nationality”, he added.