Alexandra David-Néel was a Belgian–French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, opera singer, and writer. She is most known for her 1924 visit to Lhasa, Tibet, when it was forbidden to foreigners. David-Néel wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels, including Magic and Mystery in Tibet, which was published in 1929. Her teachings influenced the beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, the popularisers of Eastern philosophy Alan Watts and Ram Dass, and the esotericist Benjamin Creme.
Victor Segalen was a French naval doctor, ethnographer, archeologist, writer, poet, explorer, art-theorist, linguist and literary critic.
Buddhism is the third largest religion in France, after Christianity and Islam.
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme was a Tibetan senior official who assumed various military and political responsibilities both before and after 1951 in Tibet. He is often known simply as Ngapo in English sources.
André Antoine Brugiroux is a French traveller and author who, between 1955 and 2005, visited every country and territory in the world, the last being Mustang. He was named "greatest living traveller on earth" in 2007 in Jorge Sánchez's list of Viajeros notables contemporaneous. He has made a documentary film of his first, 18-year trip and has devoted his life to spreading the message of the Baháʼí Faith worldwide.
The Temple for Peace is a construction project of the congregation Vajradhara-Ling in Normandy to promote world peace. The cornerstone was laid in 2003 and construction started in 2010. This Temple will be built in the same style as the Samye monastery, the first temple built in Tibet that was founded by Padmasambhava in the 8th century CE.
The 14th Dalai Lama, known to the Tibetan people as Gyalwa Rinpoche, is, as the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibet. He is considered a living Bodhisattva; specifically, an emanation of Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit, and Chenrezig in Tibetan. He is also the leader and a monk of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, formally headed by the Ganden Tripa. The central government of Tibet, the Ganden Phodrang, invested the Dalai Lama with temporal duties until his exile in 1959.
Michel Collon is a Belgian writer, and journalist for the magazine of the Marxist Workers' Party of Belgium and for his own website Investig’Action.
Raphaël Liogier is a French sociologist and philosopher. He received his PhD in social sciences at the University Paul Cézanne (Aix-Marseille) in France, where he also received master's degrees in public law and in political science. Other degrees include a degree in philosophy from the University of Provence, and a Masters of Science (MSC) by research in philosophy from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Liogier has also studied social sciences as a visiting undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley.
Érik Izraelewicz was a French journalist and author, specialised in economics and finance. From February 2011 he was director and editorial executive of the daily Le Monde, after having held the same position at the financial daily newspapers Les Echos and La Tribune.
Le Monde en stop, 5 années à l'école de la vie is the first travelbook of Ludovic Hubler, published in 2009 at Georama edition. In this book, he summarizes his tour of the world by hitchhiking, which he did between 2003 and 2008. This book was awarded the "Prix Pierre Loti", the best travel book of the year 2009 in France.
Joseph Gabet was a French Catholic Lazarite missionary. He was active in Northern China and Mongolia before traveling to Tibet with Évariste Huc. Expelled and arrested, he died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Ganden Phodrang or Ganden Podrang was the Tibetan system of government established by the 5th Dalai Lama in 1642, after the Oirat lord Güshi Khan who founded the Khoshut Khanate conferred all temporal power on the 5th Dalai Lama in a ceremony in Shigatse in the same year. Lhasa again became the capital of Tibet, and the Ganden Phodrang operated until the 1950s. The Ganden Phodrang accepted China's Qing emperors as overlords after the 1720 expedition, and the Qing became increasingly active in governing Tibet starting in the early 18th century. After the fall of the Qing empire in 1912, the Ganden Phodrang government lasted until the 1950s, when Tibet was annexed by the People's Republic of China. During most of the time from the early Qing period until the end of Ganden Phodrang rule, a governing council known as the Kashag operated as the highest authority in the Ganden Phodrang administration.
Franck Vogel is a French photographer specializing in social & environmental issues, journalist, speaker and documentary film director. He lives and works in Paris.
Jérémy Marie is a French traveler and the author of the travel book Mon tour du monde en 1980 jours, that describes his world tour by hitchhiking that he accomplished between 8 October 2007 and 12 March 2013.
The Tibet Bureau in Paris, one of the offices of the official representation of the 14th Dalai Lama and of the Tibetan government in exile, is in charge of France, the Iberian Peninsula, the Maghreb and the Benelux countries. Founded in September 1992 it acts as an Embassy.
Ludovic Ajorque is a French professional footballer who plays as a striker for Bundesliga club Mainz 05.
Chen Qingying, is a Chinese Tibetologist. He is the director of the History Research Institute under the China Tibetology Research Center.
Georges Azenstarck was a French photographer.
Claude B. Levenson was a French journalist, orientalist, Tibetologist, translator and writer who authored approximately twenty-five books on the subjects of Buddhism, Burma and Tibet. She contributed to the newspapers Le Monde, L'Obs, Politique internationale, Le Temps, Geo, 24 heures and Libération. Levenson was a member of the Committee of 100 for Tibet and worked as a translator for the Dalai Lama.
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