French former tennis player Arnaud Di Pasquale reacts as he carries an extinguished Olympic torch in Paris yesterday. The Olympic torch relay through Paris descended into chaos with security officials extinguishing the torch twice amid heavy protests. - AP
PARIS (AP):
The Olympic flame endured a city-wide gauntlet of protests in Paris yesterday, forcing organisers to retreat aboard a bus with the symbolic flame and, eventually, cut the relay short.
With the widespread havoc they wreaked, the protests against China's policies on human rights and Tibet outstripped those that had already marred the Olympic relay in London and earlier stops.
In the end, security officials gave up and put the flame on a bus for the final stretch of the journey through Paris - stopping the vehicle outside the finishing destination, a stadium, so a torchbearer could finish the last five metres on foot.
Despite massive security - and a police force with vast expertise in quelling protests - at least two activists got within almost an arm's length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. A protester threw water at the torch but failed to extinguish it and was taken away. Officers tackled numerous protesters and carried some away.
A Paris police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to media, said at least 28 people had been taken into custody.
A prison
At the start of the relay, on the Eiffel Tower's first floor, Green Party activist Sylvain Garel lunged for the first torch-bearer, former hurdler Stephane Diagana, shouting "Freedom for the Chinese.'' Security officials pulled Garel back.
"It is inadmissible that the games are taking place in the world's biggest prison,'' Garel said later.
The procession continued but soon afterward a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags interrupted it by confronting the torch-bearer on a road along the Seine River. The demonstrators did not appear to get within reach of the torch, but its flame was put out by security officers and put on board a bus to continue part-way along the route.
Boos
Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a traffic tunnel by a woman athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted "Tibet." Once again, the torch was temporarily extinguished and put on a bus.
The third time, security officials apparently interrupted the procession because they spotted demonstrators ahead. After the torch was back on the bus, protesters threw plastic bottles, cups and pieces of bread at the vehicle and at a male wheelchair-bound athlete.
The torch disappeared back inside the bus a fourth time shortly after a protester approached it with a fire extinguisher near the Louvre art museum. Police grabbed the demonstrator before he could start to spray.
