Paris mayor honours Dalai Lama, crossing China

PARIS (Reuters) - The Socialist mayor of Paris on Sunday made the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen of the French capital, a step that will irk Beijing at a time when relations between France and China had only just begun to thaw.

A chaotic Olympic torch relay in Paris last year, during which human rights and pro-Tibet activists made several lunges at athletes carrying the Olympic flame ahead of the Beijing summer Games, severely strained ties with China.

President Nicolas Sarkozy then met the Dalai Lama in December during France's presidency of the European Union, angering China so much it pulled out of a summit with the EU and its prime minister later avoided France during a tour of Europe.

Sarkozy has distanced himself from the initiative of Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe and the Dalai Lama has no meetings planned with the president or government ministers.

Beijing calls the Dalai Lama a reactionary who seeks to split off nearly a quarter of the land mass of the People's Republic of China. It has been using its diplomatic clout to try to block the pro-Tibetan message.

The exiled spiritual leader, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, denies the charge and says he seeks only greater rights, including religious freedom, and real autonomy for Tibetans.

After a year of tension between their two countries and numerous overtures by France towards the emerging power, Sarkozy met his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the April Group of Twenty (G20) summit in London.

Since then, the mood between the two states has improved and Paris has extended an invitation to Hu to visit by the end of the year. China has, however, warned Paris against giving Sunday's award to Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said last month the award, which was approved by the city council last year, would "certainly once again be opposed by the Chinese people", a possible reference to anti-French protests last year.

Sarkozy's centre-right UMP party, which Delanoe's Socialist Party opposes, has made clear that the award has nothing to do with the national government.