The Palais Omnisports in the Bercy district is where big-name rock stars perform when they come to Paris. Eminem filled the house there last June, as did Madonna during her 2001 world tour.
But earlier this month, this pyramid-shaped glass concert hall on the Seine opened its doors to a different sort of luminary, one who has none of the razzmatazz normally found at Bercy, but a fame, allure and a quiet message that nonetheless packs in the crowds: the Dalai Lama.
The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who also runs a Tibetan government in exile from the Himalayan village of Dharamsala in India, found Bercy a fitting venue for conveying his message.
For one, only a place like Palais Omnisports could accommodate the thousands who snapped up the tickets well in advance, paying as much as 260 euros (HK$2,350) for a full week of the Dalai Lama's teachings - seminars which were the first events of their kind in Paris. In all, the Dalai Lama taught in Paris for about a week, leaving last Tuesday for other European cities.
Even if unintended, the choice of Bercy symbolised what an international icon Dalai Lama has become since winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Born in 1935 in a small village in northeast Tibet as Tenzin Gyatso, and recognised at age three as the reincarnation of his 13 predecessors, he is now politician, sage, best-selling author (his Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living has sold 1.2 million copies) and saint, all paradoxically wrapped in an aura not entirely unlike that of a rock star.
'He filled all of Bercy. That's amazing!' said Dominique Cogne, a retired Parisian automobile distributor, speaking of the Dalai Lama's weekend introduction to Buddhism, with a sell-out audience of about 12,000 people. 'If anyone had an extra ticket that they needed to sell, they got rid of it right away. There were people looking for tickets and there weren't any left.'