France: Introducing Falun Gong in Bourgogne Over Two Days

On the 9th and 10th of September French practitioners travelled to Dijon and set up an information stall to let more people know about the human rights situation in China and to introduce Falun Gong.

Dijon is a big city but many people there know nothing about Falun Gong. They were very concerned, as if they had been waiting for us for a long time. We handed out many more leaflets than we expected. Lots of people wanted to sign our petition and nobody refused our leaflets. They did not know Falun Gong, but news on violations of human rights in China is nothing new to them. We felt deeply that it was very important to explain the facts about the brutal persecution initiated by Jiang and his regime against Falun Gong practitioners over the past few years.

After we arrived at our meeting point, we noticed that the street was narrow and it was also partly blocked by scaffolding. However, the problem was solved immediately, because the workers had already begun to remove it, and also they helped us to set up our stall. As all the department of the city government knew of our arrival, nobody came to check our certificate of permission. The police came several times to get some information on Falun Gong. We were kept very busy talking to the Dijon people. Then we began to think of how we could find a way to say thank you to the city government officials for providing us with this opportunity to talk with the people of Dijon; this would also be a great chance to let the city officials know more about Falun Gong. At that precise moment, a principal from the city government came to our stall, telling us that she was the one who gave us the permission for the activity, and she would like to get more information. We said thank you to her.

Lots of people were surprised that we could have a stall for two days, because it was very rare to see such a thing. Over ten people left their contact details in order to learn the exercises in the future. Even the problem of finding a location for a practice site was solved because one person provided a convenient location for us.