PARIS (Reuters) – France’s foreign ministry has summoned China’s ambassador for repeated insults and threats against French lawmakers and a researcher and a Beijing decision to sanction officials across the European Union.
“The words of the Chinese embassy in France and the actions against European elected officials, researchers and diplomats are inadmissible,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian wrote on Twitter on Monday. “I asked that the Chinese ambassador be summoned to remind him. of these messages. “
The United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada on Monday imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over human rights violations in Xinjiang, in the first such coordinated Western operation against Beijing under new US President Joe Biden.
Chinese Ambassador Lu Shaye was summoned by the French Foreign Ministry last April over reports and tweets from the embassy defending Beijing’s response to the pandemic and criticizing the West’s handling of the outbreak.
The embassy wrote in a tweet that the ambassador would go to the foreign ministry on Tuesday to discuss EU sanctions and questions regarding Taiwan.
His embassy last week warned against French lawmakers meeting officials during an upcoming visit to self-governing Taiwan and a refusal by France.
Since then, it has been in a Twitter face with Antoine Bondaz, an expert on China at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, in which the embassy described him as a ‘little thug’.
Earlier Monday, the embassy said the EU sanctions were based on lies and misinformation, which is an interference in China’s domestic affairs.
The French Foreign Ministry has said it will also summon the ambassador to challenge the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s decision to punish several European citizens, including French Member of the European Parliament Raphael Glucksmann.
“It is not by attacking academic freedom, freedom of expression and fundamental democratic freedoms that China will respond to the legitimate concerns of the European Union, nor that it will promote dialogue with the 27” countries in the EU, said Agnes von der Muhll, spokesperson for the ministry. said reporters in a daily briefing.
(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Giles Elgood and Jonathan Oatis)