'No room for insults': France condemns 'unacceptable comments' from Chinese envoy

France’s foreign ministry on March 22 condemned “unacceptable comments” from the Chinese ambassador in Paris that included alleged insults and threats toward lawmakers and a researcher. According to AP, the French ministry also denounced the sanctions imposed by China against ten Europeans, including five EU Parliament members, in response to Western sanctions against Chinese officials over alleged rights violations against the country’s Uyghur minority. Further, the Chinese ambassador, Lu Shaye, has been summoned to the ministry over his recent comments. 

In a series of tweets, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, “The words of the Chinese Embassy in France and the actions against elected officials, researchers and European diplomats are inadmissible. I asked that the Chinese Ambassador be summoned to remind him firmly of these messages”. 

France protests sanctions imposed by China

The Chinese embassy in France had called a Paris-based researcher, Antoine Bondaz, a “thug” after he denounced China’s pressure on French lawmakers over an upcoming visit to Taiwan. Following his comments, China’s Shaye’s decried Bondaz as a “small-time hoodlum”, a “crazed hyena” and an “ideological troll” with “anti-Chinese” stances. In response to Shaye, French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhl said that the embassy is required to “strictly respect” the rules for diplomatic relations. 

The French foreign ministry also protested China’s decision to sanction several European nationals, including a French member of the EU Parliament, Raphael Glucksmann. It is worth mentioning that China had said that sanctions were in retaliation for sanctions the EU imposed on senior Chinese officials over human rights abuses in China’s far-western Xinjiang region. The French ministry, on the other hand, said that it is not be attacking academic freedom, freedom of expression and fundamental democratic freedoms that China will respond to the legitimate concerns of the EU. 

(Image: AP)