"We thought it would be just like any other concert hall, but once we got there we realised the importance of the place," explains Cyril Prieur, Patricia Kaas's manager for the past eighteen years. The gigantic building located on Tiananmen Square is one of the symbols of Chinese authority. There is a carpeted entrance with marble columns and crystal chandeliers, guarded by an elite force of the Chinese army. The concert hall is immense, with over 8,000 seats, and decorated with an enormous red star on the ceiling. The stage is charged with history: Mao Zedong himself made many speeches from it. Thirty years later, it was the turn of France's biggest female singer of her day to perform on this same stage. Conditions were somewhat difficult, not only because of the importance of the building but also due to restrictions placed on the audience, who weren't allowed to stand up or get closer than three metres from the stage. Another worry was seat prices, which were very expensive. "Would there be enough people? Would the audience be too unresponsive?" were the questions that circulated among Patricia's entourage. Until the last minute before curtain up, the French crew had to bridge the language gap in order to settle a number of problems with their Chinese counterparts, particularly the lack of backstage passes – only five for the whole crew.

Under these difficult conditions, the concert was something of an all-or-nothing affair –  "a triumph or a flop," as one crew member put it. But Patricia Kaas gave it her all, and in the end the magic worked. The concert hall was full – a lot of tickets had been bought by companies, which had offered them to employees who had wanted to see the French star. Other members of the audience had saved up over time to be able to hear the "thread of joyous song," as Patricia Kaas has been called in China. People seemed to be expecting an inaccessible star, but she came across as very human, natural and feminine. "The most important thing for me is meeting with the public," she says, and it's an approach that works. Over almost two hours, she alternated blues and rock songs, some deep and nostalgic, others sassy and joyful. Her slender frame flowed with energy, and her smooth, sweet voice won over the audience. Patricia went to great efforts to connect with the audience, despite the restrictions. First, she opened her arms out to the crowd, then surprised the organisers by inviting a young girl to join her on stage and singing to her, tête-à-tête: "Ma liberté contre la tienne" (my freedom against yours). The words were ripe with meaning, given the context. The atmosphere was charged with emotion, everyone applauded, and a French-speaking woman in the audience burst into tears.

Everyone on their feet for Patricia

It was just after that moment that the second highlight of the evening happened – a duet, in French, with one of China's greatest stars, the singer Liu Huan, with whom Patricia sang "La vie en rose". The audience broke out in cheers. Then followed a supercharged rock song, "On pourrait faire la révolution" (we could make a revolution) done as a comic duet with guitarist Pascal "Tatate" Bétremieux, very much in form that evening, as he mimed a kung-fu fight. The audience loved it, some people started to get on their feet, and Patricia seized the opportunity to ask everyone to get up. It was just what the audience needed. In a few seconds, the aisles were filled with people dancing and clapping to the beat. It was certainly a first for the Great Hall of the People! "I didn't understand the words, but her voice and personality crosses borders. I didn't know her, but now I'm a fan," said one Beijing student after the show. She had at least learnt two words of French: "à moi", which Patricia got the audience to repeat while she sang "Mon mec à moi" (my guy). One of Patricia's strengths is to put the music and the public above everything else, a lesson many pop acts in France have yet to learn. The "Mademoiselle" also has the benefit of twenty-five years of stage experience and hundreds of concerts – plus an excellent road crew.

The Beijing concert was her second in China, after Shanghai on 13 May, and with Hong Kong following on 18 May – a very short leg of the massive "Sexe Fort 2005" tour which takes in 170 concerts across the world. But it is also the realisation of a dream. Patricia Kaas was to perform in China in 1994, but the date was too close to the anniversary of the massacre of Tiananmen Square, and the concert was cancelled. Since then, Patricia has often performed in Asia, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Japan and Korea, where she is a bona fide star with 300,000 albums sold. She is already well known to Chinese people in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, where albums sell well and her hits are played on the radio. In China itself, 15,000 copies of her last album "Sexe Fort" were sold, which leaves a lot of room for improvement given the size of the album market there (240 albums a year, and ten times that amount on the black market). Patricia has finally managed to enter China by the front door thanks to the Year of France in China initiative, for which she was invited to be an "ambassadress" of French chanson. A title she didn't choose herself: "I don't think about it, all I really love is performing. But if my being an ambassadress can help French chanson, then so much the better."