FRANCE/ROMANIA: FORMER KING MICHAEL OF ROMANIA REFUSED ENTRY TO HIS HOMELAND ON FRIDAY AND ORDERED TO RETURN TO PARIS AN HOUR LATER

Record ID: 646352

  • Title: FRANCE/ROMANIA: FORMER KING MICHAEL OF ROMANIA REFUSED ENTRY TO HIS HOMELAND ON FRIDAY AND ORDERED TO RETURN TO PARIS AN HOUR LATER
  • Date: 7th October 1994
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE / BUCHAREST, ROMANIA (OCTOBER 7, 1994) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) PARIS, FRANCE (OCTOBER 7, 1994) 1. SVS PEOPLE GREET THE KING,ONE WOMAN SAYS GOD BLESS YOU (ENGLISH) 0.23 2. CU REPORTER ASKING KING IF HE IS OPTIMISTIC, KING SAYING HE IS NEITHER OPTIMISTIC NOR PESSIMISTIC, AND HAD BEEN ASKED TO LEAVE LAST BECAUSE THERE WERE LARGE DEMONSTRATIONS AND IT WAS NOT APPRECIATED (FRENCH) 0.43 3. SV PASSPORT CONTROL 0.46 4. SVS KING AND WIFE WALKING TOWARDS DEPARTURE GATE 1.05 BUCHAREST, ROMANIA (OCTOBER 7, 1994) 5. GVS EXTERIOR OTOPENI AIRPORT/ ARMOURED VEHICLES/ POLICE ON GUARD AT AIRPORT 1.17 6. WIDE SHOT ARRIVALS LOUNGE 1.20 7. SCU/CU DEMONSTRATORS CARRYING BANNERS AND PLACARDS SUPPORTING THE KING CHANT THEIR SUPPORT FOR HIM 1.34 8. GVS AIR FRANCE PLANE SITTING ON TARMAC, POLICE AND OFFICIALS BY FRONT STEPS 1.45 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 22nd October 1994 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE / BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
  • City:
  • Country: Romania
  • Reuters ID: LVA572O1W8TKWDIQS0YS57Q5PIMG
  • Story Text: Former King Michael of Romania flew to his Homeland on Friday (October 7) in defiance of the Romanian Government and was forced to leave again barely an hour after arriving from Paris.

    Michael, aged 72, left on the same Air France plane that brought him to Bucharest after the Romanian Government went through with its threat to bar him.

    Michael arrived on Air France flight 2146 from Paris just before 2.20 pm (1220 GMT) with an entourage including his wife Anne. Witnesses said he was taken from the aircraft steps to a Romanian Tarom Airlines Tupolev.

    The Tupolev commander told reporters he had been ordered to fly Michael back to his exile in Switzerland but added that Michael had refused to fly on the aircraft and had decided to return to Paris.The flight back to Paris took off at 3.40 pm (1340 GMT).

    Speaking to journalists at the airport in Paris before his flight to Bucharest, Michael said he was confident he would be welcomed by the Romanian people because he had received hundreds of letters of support from them.

    Asked if had a visa, Michael, who has a British passport, replied he did not, adding the Romanian authorities expected him to have one but he did not think it was necessary.

    Romania's leftist government, many of its top figures including President Ion Iliescu veterans of the communist era, had refused to grant a visa for Michael to enter the country, saying he was a foreigner with no claim to a throne.

    Asked whether he feared for his life in Romania, Michael said he used to in the past but no longer did. He could not say whether any security arrangements had been made for his visit.

    Michael -- who was expelled and stripped of his throne in 1947 --said he had not been to Romania since Easter 1992.

    In a statement prepared before his arrival in Bucharest, Michael said he was seeking national unity not confrontation, adding he did not pose a threat to the Republican Constitution.


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