Former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who just returned from a visit to Canada, on Friday hurried to the Chinese Embassy to express his condolences to the victims of a deadly earthquake that hit China's southwestern Sichuan Province.

Although China's three-day national mourning for the quake victims has passed and the funeral hall in the embassy has been withdrawn, Raffarin insisted to go to the embassy to express his strong emotion.

"Although I am late, I myself should come here at this crucial time when the Chinese people are suffering disaster to show condolences to the victims and comfort to the survivors," Raffarin said, both hands clasping together with Chinese ambassador Kong Quan's.

China declared a three-day national mourning at home and its missions abroad to memorize the 68,858 people killed and 18,618 missing as of Friday noon in an May 12 earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale in China's southwestern China. Millions of people have been displaced after the quake.

"True love shows in time of need -- the French people express their strongest friendship with the Chinese people," Raffarin wrote in the mourning book at the embassy.

During the national days of mourning, Raffarin, who was on a business trip in Canada, sent a letter to the Chinese Embassy to France to express his apologies for not attending the mourning ceremonies.

In the letter, he conveyed sympathy to the Chinese people in the disaster regions and admiration to the Chinese government's swift and efficient work in disaster relief.

Raffarin, who also served as first vice-president of France's ruling party the Union for a Popular Movement, said his party has organized fundraising activities to rally support for the disaster relief in China.

Kong spoke highly of Raffarin's moves, noting that he is an old friend of the Chinese people as well as a visionary statesman.

Good relations between China and France are favorable to both sides, Kong said, expressing his hope that the two countries will work together to clear away obstacles, overcome difficulties and further promote development and expand the strategic partnership of cooperation on the basis of mutual respect.

(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2008)