French Socialists leave parliament in protest at Gaddafi visit

Dec 11, 2007, 14:57 GMT

Paris - Deputies from the opposition French Socialist Party walked out of the National Assembly on Tuesday to protest the visit earlier in the day to the body by Libyan ruler Moamer Gaddafi.

The Socialists had been fiercely opposed to Gaddafi's five-day state visit to France because of his past involvement with terrorism.

The Socialists and several members of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) also boycotted Gaddafi's appearance at the residence of the president of the National Assembly, Bernard Accoyer.

During his meeting with the lawmakers at Accoyer's official office, Gaddafi praised Sarkozy's idea for a Mediterranean Union, called for a single state in the Mideast and criticized what he called the 'internationalization' of the Darfur conflict.

Gaddafi also provoked more controversy when he said, in an interview to be broadcast on French television later Tuesday, that Sarkozy had not discussed the human rights situation in Libya with him, as the French president claimed on Monday.

He was immediately contradicted by Accoyer and Sarkozy's chief of staff, Claude Gueant. Accoyer told journalists that he had heard the French president broach the issue, but that Gaddafi had simply not replied.

On Monday, after meeting with Gaddafi, Sarkozy said he had raised human rights with the Libyan strongman and said that more progress needed to be made in Libya.