France: Promoting Falun Gong on National Day

14th July is French National Day. On this day of every year, a grand parade is held on the streets of Paris. Thousands upon thousands of people go to the streets to watch the celebrations and many people from other provinces also come to the busy capital to take part in the festivities. During this national holiday, Falun Gong practitioners went to Paris to promote Falun Gong in La Place des Innocents near Pengpidu Art Centre.

A Falun Dafa banner of was hung in a prominent position between the trees. On the other side of the Square were exhibition boards introducing how Falun Gong has spread all over the world and describing how Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist Party have colluded to carry out a comprehensive, systematic and brutal campaign of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. An information table was set up and housed brief introductions to Falun Gong in over ten languages. A group of practitioners demonstrated the beautiful, easy and relaxing Falun Gong exercises, as well as performing traditional Chinese dancing and waist drumming dressed in beautiful bright colours. In the meantime, another group of practitioners distributed leaflets and answered questions raised by the public.

Many passers-by were attracted to the peaceful exercises, the sound of the drums and the graceful dances. After watching the performances, many people went to the information counter and signed the petition expressing support for an end to the persecution. Some of them were talking with practitioners in order to get more information and said that they would like find out about the nearest exercise site where they can go and learn the exercises for free.

Many kind French people found it difficult to understand why the CCP has persecuted such a peaceful practice as Falun Gong by using such brutal methods of suppression. Practitioners told them that the CCP is a totalitarian dictatorship that cannot accept its people believing in anything other than communism. Falun Gong’s principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance were very different from the violence, lies and mind control that the CCP has used to rule China for over 50 years. Many Chinese people were attracted to Falun Gong by these principles and the high moral standard they saw in practitioners and the practice quickly amassed 100 million followers. This made the former leader of the CCP Jiang Zemin extremely jealous and he subsequently launched his campaign of genocide against Falun Gong.

A gentleman, who was a freelance journalist for several TV stations in France, told practitioners he already knows that human rights in China is in a terrible situation. Because of criticizing the Chinese Government, one of his reporter friends had been deported. He left his friend’s contact address so that practitioners could send her some information. He also wished practitioners the best of luck and told them to keep up their good work before he left.

After reading the exhibition boards exposing the persecution, a French couple who just came back from China said, “We never expected that such filthy facts are behind the prosperity of the economic surface in China.”

After reading the exhibition boards, a French girl felt not only indignant but also that she could do nothing about it. So she asked practitioners how to end the persecution. They encouraged her to let others know about the persecution and to remember in her heart that in the end good will prevail over evil and justice will be done.