Published by: World Tibet Network News, Sunday, October 27, 1996

PARIS, Oct 25 (AFP) - A visit to France by exiled Tibetan spiritual leader is pastoral not political, French foreign ministry spokesman Jacques Rummelhardt said late Thursday.

"It is a pastoral visit," Rummelhardt said, adding that he had no information on any possible meeting of the Dalia Lama with senior French officials.

But French parliamentary deputy Louis de Broissia, of the ruling Rally for the Republic party, said he considered a reception next week at the National Assembly by deputies and senators was "a political gesture."

"It emanates from the representation of the nation, and therefore from France," said de Broissia, chairman of the National Assembly's study group on Tibet.

De Broissia's group and its Senate equivalent will play host to the Dalai Lama on October 30, when he will be handed an "appeal from French parliamentarians for Tibet."

It has been signed by 245 deputies and senators from all political parties in the parliament, de Broissia said.

China, which has ruled Tibet since 1950, has already condemned a visit by the Dalai Lama to the European parliament in Strasbourg that began Wednesday as "gross interference" in its internal affairs.

French President Jacques Chirac is due to make his first visit as head of state to China in May next year.

The European Parliament has shown strong support for the Dalai Lama since his first visit to Strasbourg in 1988 when a working group on Tibet was established.

The European Parliament has since passed several resolutions in support of human rights in Tibet.

At the end of his Strasbourg visit, the Dalai Lama will travel to Germany and Helsinki before returning to France.