Dec 6, 2008, despite strong opposition from China, Sarkozy, in his roles as French president and the European Union's rotating president, met the Dalai Lama in Poland.

April 28-30, 2010, French President Sarkozy paid another state visit to China and attended the opening ceremony of the Shanghai Expo.

April 25-26, 2013, French President Francois Hollande made a state visit to China. During the visit, the two leaders exchanged views on bilateral relations, China-EU relations, the international situation and major international and regional issues. They attended the Sino-French business forum. The two sides issued a joint press release, and signed a number of cooperation agreements. The two sides decided to maintain the annual heads of state meeting, enhance strategic dialogue, establish a high-level economic and financial dialogue mechanism; enhance the level of cooperation in traditional areas of nuclear energy and aviation, strengthen the emerging field of urbanization, agricultural food, new energy and digitization, expand mutual investment, promote balanced growth of bilateral trade; strengthen cultural heritage protection, to prevent and combat the smuggling of cultural relics, expand the number of exchange students, promote tourism cooperation; strengthen the coordination and cooperation of G20 in climate change, energy, food and security issues.

President Xi Jinping holds the ceremony to welcome French President Mitterrand in Beijing, April 25, 2013.