BEIJING, March 4 (AFP) - Chinese climbers Tuesday hit out at French critics of an Sino-French expedition to climb the world's tallest mountain from the Tibet side.

"I am indignant at the reaction of certain people in France who want to politicise a sporting activity like mountaineering," the vice-president of China's Alpine Association, Li Zhixin, told AFP.

"French mountaineers have considerable experience which is why we decided to work with them, but because of these opponents who want to stage a political campaign, we have been forced to delay this cooperation," he added.

The expedition, organised by Serge Koenig, a guide in the French Alpine resort of Chamonix, was due to have been staged this spring, but will now get underway at best by the spring of 1988 or could even be abandoned, Koenig said earlier in France, following massed complaints.

More than 2,000 people, most of them mountaineers, have signed a petition protesting the Everest expedition because of Beijing's repression in Tibet.

The French Alpine Club (CAF), which organized the petition, says the expedition risked being seen as supporting China's policy towards Tibet.

The trip "would legitimize all China's demands on Tibet, contributing to people forgetting the limitless oppression there," said CAF president Andre Croibier.

Chinese troops moved into Tibet in 1951 in what Beijing said was a move to liberate the people from their oppressive rulers.

Opposition to China has continued since then, the most serious being a failed 1959 uprising which led to Tibet's spiritual ruler the Dalai Lama fleeing into exile.

Using 20 Chinese and French climbers the expedition had planned to open a new direct route on the north face of Everest, using fixed ropes to scale a rocky spur at over 7,000 metres (23,100 feet).

The expedition, called Alliance 8848, would use oxygen cylinders for more than 2,000 metres before making the final assault.

Koenig has denounced his critics as "jealous schemers," saying that for years French expeditions had set off from the Tibetan side of the mountain. "Why should our expedition be more of an endorsement of what goes on in Tibet than the other expeditions or the hundreds of tourists who visit Tibet?"

The expedition has been "strongly condemned" by the CAF for "excessive publicity" and "use of disproportionate resources" which were bound to "flout elementary ethics" and "harm the environment."

The climb was to be televised live and helicopters and a satellite mobilised to assist coverage.

The expedition has been approved by the French and Chinese authorities and will be sponsored by French industrialists anxious to gain a foothold in the Chinese market and who have formed the association Alliance 8848.