Visit of the Chinese president to France: Tibetans and Uighurs protest and challenge Emmanuel Macron

Mobilizations are increasing in Paris as Emmanuel Macron is due to receive Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday. A visit experienced by certain associations as an affront to human rights.

A gathering of Uighurs is planned for Sunday May 5 in Paris at Place de la Madeleine, as well as a march by Tibetans at Place de la République. On Saturday, it was Amnesty International which mobilized, when the NGO Human Rights Watch called for demonstrations on Friday, in order to hold Emmanuel Macron accountable for the arrival of the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, from Monday.

This is the third time that the highest Chinese leader has come to France and the second time under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron, for a visit which is part of the 60 years of the establishment of relations between France and China. As always, human rights defenders are mobilizing to try to make their voices heard.

Among the Uighurs, where the term genocide is put forward, we regret that the French president receives the one they describe as an executioner, while the latter would refuse to meet the victims who fled China and who live in France, after Dilnur Reyhan of the Uyghur Institute of Europe. “We asked Emmanuel Macron, on several occasions, to receive us, but he never took our requests seriously. We have two survivors of camps in France, and he never received them either.”

A letter to the French president

Among the Tibetans, it was through a letter that the French president was informed of the dramatic situation suffered by the Dalai Lama’s people. An initiative that we owe to the Tibetan diaspora, very active in recent generations, of which Yangkey Dolka Muccini is a part. “We are all working together so that Tibet is free and so that one day, his holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama can return to a free Tibet,” he hopes. “China certainly succeeded in taking our country, but what it failed to steal is the inner strength that we have within us.”

On the side of the Élysée, we assure that human rights will be mentioned by President Emmanuel Macron during his meetings with his Chinese counterpart.