Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama warned China Saturday it was up to his people to decide on his future role, days after a change at the head of the Tibetan government in exile.

"As early as 1959 I made it clear, officially," that it was up to the Tibetan people to decide whether or not the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue, he said, referring to the year of the uprising against Chinese rule and his flight into exile in India.

"It seems for the time being concerned people, most of them, want to keep the institution," he added, speaking at the start of a two-day Buddhist conference on the "Steps of Meditation" and the "Art of Happiness" attended by more than 7,000 French and foreign followers.

The issue would again be dealt with by a meeting of Buddhist officials in September, he said at a press briefing, adding that there was "no hurry".

Lobsang Sangay, a 43-year-old Harvard scholar, took over the role of head of the Tibetan government in exile from the 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate on Monday.

The Dalai Lama warned communist authorities in Beijing against meddling with issues of his reincarnation.

"About my reincarnation, I have the only right to decide, and no one (else) has the authority to decide about that," he said. Reincarnation is believed by some religions to occur when the soul or spirit come back to life in a new form after death.

"Today communist China considers religion is a poison and they consider me as a demon. So, I would be a demon reincarnation. This is nonsense," he said, adding: "So the Chinese communists should accept rebirth."

Organisers said that when the Dalai Lama came to Toulouse in 1982 he drew a crowd of 500, but 2,500 attended a meeting 11 years later. More than 7,000 cheered his arrival on Saturday, a record number for this kind of conference in this southwestern French city.

Speaking in English from a throne, he cautioned his followers sitting cross-legged on the stage of an entertainment centre to react with scepticism to any teaching and never to accept teachings literally.

Referring to the upheaval in the Arab world he said that democracy and freedom were on all peoples' mind as they were the only possible way to govern.

An organiser of the meeting said it was the seventh in France since 1991, with 85 percent of attendants coming from France and 24 percent from the region around Toulouse.

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