For 34 years, Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was not invited to Paris. By the time he left last weekend, it was clear why. Having waited so long, Colonel Qaddafi seemed determined to spare no offense.

His host, President Nicolas Sarkozy, gave him abundant opportunities, starting with the timing. Here was Libya’s leader-for-life, now in his 39th year of running a nasty police state, being feted on International Human Rights Day by the leader of a country that authored the truly revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man. The symbolism was so repellent that the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, a longtime human rights activist, passed up an official dinner with the colonel at the presidential palace for a previous engagement. The secretary of state for human rights, Rama Yade, was still more forthright, noting that people in Libya disappear: “No one knows what has become of them. The press is not free. Prisoners are tortured.”

Mr. Sarkozy countered that he had raised such human rights issues with his guest. The colonel said that the subject never came up. Legislators, to their credit, turned down the colonel’s request to address the National Assembly.

The visit was in part a reward for Libya’s release — after lengthy imprisonment and abuse — of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor unjustly accused of deliberately injecting patients with the virus that causes AIDS. Paris also pounced on the occasion to pursue lucrative contracts with oil-rich Libya. Mr. Kouchner’s absence from the official dinner only left more room for businessmen eager to clinch deals.

France will help Tripoli build a civilian nuclear power plant and will sell military equipment that will allow Libya to rebuild its forces after years of damaging international sanctions. On his way home, Colonel Qaddafi was feted in Madrid, dining with Spanish business leaders similarly eager for contracts. Some of this commerce feels premature. The Libyan leader is now quick to condemn terrorism, but just as quick to argue that one leading cause of it is continued Western dominance of the United Nations and other world institutions.

Colonel Qaddafi has been trying to rehabilitate his international image. Disclosing and abandoning Libya’s secret nuclear weapons programs and the release of the European nurses were part of that effort. As Ms. Yade pointed out, he still has a long way to go.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company