The French government will use a scheduled meeting with China's ambassador in Paris on Monday to issue a "stern rebuke" after the envoy said that no international law "confirms the status of independence" of post-Soviet states.
Beijing's ambassador to France Lu Shaye triggered a furore by saying on French television that countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union "don't have effective status under international law because there is not an international agreement confirming their status as sovereign nations".
