FRANCE: On the last day of her European tour, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi visits the Louvre museum in Paris

Record ID: 862405

  • Title: FRANCE: On the last day of her European tour, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi visits the Louvre museum in Paris
  • Date: 30th June 2012
  • Summary: SUU KYI GREETING CHILDREN
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • City:
  • Country: France
  • Topics: International Relations,Arts,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9V8D8B93BNW0C77MK85JLCRBN
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  • Story Text: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited Paris' Louvre museum on Friday (June 29), on the last day of her visit to Europe.
    The 67-year-old Nobel Peace laureate was welcomed by French culture minister Aurelie Filippetti and greeted by numerous tourists also visiting the museum.
    "The people here are just like the people in Burma. It's a beautiful visit, it's just not long enough. I'll have to come back to France again and not just for a few days. It's simply not the way to visit France. I need decent few months," Suu Kyi said after a short tour of the art work at the famous museum, which included Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece - the Mona Lisa.
    This cultural visit brings to an end a 17-day tour that would have been unimaginable 19 months ago, when an authoritarian junta ruled Myanmar and confined her to her home.
    The Oxford graduate spent 15 years under house arrest, becoming an icon of non-violent political resistance before she was released in November 2010 with her National League for Democracy (NLD) party dominating April by-elections and threatening the military-backed ruling party ahead of a general election in 2015.
    "She's an exceptional woman in an exceptional environment - the Louvre. With yesterday's visit of the Orsay museum, those are the only two museums she managed to visit during her trip abroad. Her first trip in 25 years. I am happy she chose Paris and France and the Louvre and the Orsay museum to get back in touch with art that she really loves and appreciates," Filippetti said.
    After nearly half a century of direct military rule, in 2010 the ruling junta gave way to a quasi-civilian government stuffed with former generals, and since then current President Thein Sein has startled the world with his appetite for reforms.
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