PARIS • French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner cannot meet the Dalai Lama (pictured) during his trip to France because he is too busy dealing with the Georgian crisis, he said in a newspaper interview published yesterday.

"On the 20th, I can't," Kouchner was quoted as saying by the Journal du Dimanche, adding that "my timetable has been thrown into disarray by the Georgian crisis."

The Dalai Lama's aide Mathieu Ricard had said Thursday that the meeting-which was not officially confirmed by the French government-would take place next Wednesday, August 20, in the western French city of Nantes.

Kouchner told the Journal du Dimanche he had telephoned the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader this week, adding: "I always see my friend the Dalai Lama when he is in France." "I hope to be able to meet him," he said, but added that he was extremely busy because of the conflict in Georgia, where France has brokered a peace deal between Moscow and Tbilisi.

The Dalai Lama began a 12-day visit to France on Monday, which stirred tensions with China, currently hosting the Olympics.

Tentative plans for a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy were dropped, at the Dalai Lama's request, to avoid angering China and setting back talks between Tibetan and Chinese parties, Sarkozy's office and members of the Buddhist leader's entourage said.

But French commentators suggested that Paris persuaded the Dalai Lama not to request a meeting to avoid straining its relations with Beijing.

Ruling party deputy Lionnel Luca, who heads a 250-strong French parliamentary study group on Tibet, said it was "shameful" that the Nobel peace laureate should be denied a red carpet welcome. On Wednesday, the Dalai Lama had a closed-door meeting in the Senate with a group of deputies. On Saturday, he met the unsuccessful Socialist candidate in last year's presidential elections, Segolene Royal.