Cuban President Fidel Castro received a respectful but low-key welcome Monday as he arrived in France on a visit that marks a diplomatic breakthrough for one of the world's last communist leaders.
No senior French officials were on hand at Charles de Gaulle airport to greet Castro, dressed in his customary military uniform, as he flew in from Copenhagen after participating in the U.N. poverty summit.Officially, his three-day visit to France comes at the invitation of UNESCO, and thus protocol did not require a high-level airport welcome. But Castro went directly from the airport to a breakfast with France's first lady, Danielle Mitterrand. Castro was to have lunch later with her husband, Francois Mitterrand, at the presidential palace.
Danielle Mitterrand, in a radio interview Sunday, asserted that Castro was "not a dictator." She praised his regime for its achievements in education and women's rights.
But Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Cuba must take further strides to promote democracy and protect human rights. An opposition group, Democratic Cuba, planned a protest outside UNESCO during Castro's speech Monday afternoon.
French officials said this is only Castro's third visit to Western Europe since his revolutionaries seized power in Cuba in 1959. He visited Spain in 1984 and 1992.
Mitterrand, who met with Castro 21 years ago as head of France's Socialist Party, has denounced the U.S. embargo against Cuba as "stupid" and overseen an increase in French-Cuban trade. Cuba's economy is in shambles and it needs new partners following the collapse of Soviet communism.
Danielle Mitterrand, in her radio interview, called the U.S. embargo "the greatest international injustice I have ever seen."