Sarkozy will attend the opening of the Olympics

Image by mashroms via FlickrWhat I liked about France's president Nicholas Sarkozy's recent demarches towards China was that he seemed to leave the vagueness that mostly comes along with the criticism by governments, NGO's and whoever wants to give its opinion about China's human rights. At least Sarkozy wanted to spell out three very concrete demands, and that sounded more like the talk of a decent politician. Asking for an improvement of human rights in general might also give the Chinese authorities very little opportunities to give in to those demands.
Today I got the shortlist of France's demands and unfortunately, it will be very easy to fulfill those, suggesting at least that Sarkozy has already booked this ticket to be on time for August 8 in Beijing. What does he want, according to media reports?

1. An end of the violence against the population. That is vague enough to have been achieved in a few months time. It does not tell whether the Chinese security forces can also use force to stop violence between different groups of citizens, but I guess that would be in order.
2. The release of political prisoners. It does not call for numbers, names or groups of people to be released. It even does not mention those arrested during the latest riots in Tibet. Typically China would release already a few political prisoners before US dignitaries would arrive in Beijing, so for this event it would not be a problem to make a bigger gesture. They got a few famous new ones anyway recently.
3. Opening of a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. As far as I know these talks do take place already on a regular basis, although they are not much publicized, because both parties have something to explain to their constituencies.
So: I do not see so many barriers in Sarkozy attending the opening games of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Update: A, this story was very short-lived. The French Minister on Human Rights Rama Yade (they have something like that in France!) denied she had spelled out any conditions for her President's attendance of the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Beijing, says the BBC. Ms Yade said she never mentioned any conditions. Le Monde sticks to its story. Looks that this demarche is dead before it really started.