Chinese President Xi Jinping landed at Orly airport at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 5, for a two-day state visit to France, welcomed by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. As during official trips to China, a welcoming committee of hundreds of Chinese from France was present at the exit of the airport, brandishing Chinese and French flags and singing in Mandarin: “We warmly welcome you”. But elsewhere in Paris, more than a thousand Tibetans, Uighurs and Chinese critics of the regime demonstrated against the arrival of the Chinese leader, who is also due to visit Serbia and Hungary.
As early as Saturday, two Tibetan activists were arrested after hanging a large banner between two lampposts in front of the Arc de Triomphe, proclaiming: “Europe, say no to Xi’s genocide” (“Europe, say no to Xi’s genocide”). They were released after around ten hours in police custody.
Sunday afternoon, despite the rain, more than a thousand people gathered at Place de la République, including a large majority of Tibetans from France and even Europe: three buses had been chartered from Belgium and one from the Stockings for the occasion. Due to lack of authorization from the prefecture, the march which was to reach Bastille became a static gathering.
“A genocide is still underway”
At the microphone, a young activist denounced in particular the policy of forced assimilation of Tibetan children, sent to boarding schools far from their families, the fate of the Panchen Lama, number 2 of Tibetan Buddhism who died in 1995, at the age of 6 years, the construction of dams leading to population displacements and the closure of Tibet to foreign visitors – including journalists – as well as to Tibetans in exile. “Mr. President Emmanuel Macron, we strongly ask you to have the political courage to speak about Tibet with your Chinese counterpart, Mr. Xi Jinping”she said to conclude this open letter to the French president.
At the same time, a few dozen Uighurs – fewer in number in France than the Tibetans – and supporters gathered in front of the Madeleine church, for a political play. A gathering punctuated by tensions, when counter-protesters brandished Chinese flags. “In this context where a genocide is still underway, this welcome by the French president of the executioner of the Uighur people is incomprehensible to us. This is an encouragement for China to continue its crimes to the end,” denounced sociologist Dilnur Reyhan, founder of the Uighur Institute of Europe, on Friday May 3 at a press conference in Paris. “For the Uighur people and in particular for the French Uighurs, it is a slap in the face that our President Emmanuel Macron is giving us”she castigated.
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