April 7, 2008
Anti-China protestors douse Olympic flame not once but twice in Paris
Editor's note: Former Shanghaiist contributor Hélène Franchineau was present at the Olympic torch relay in Paris earlier today and tells us of what she saw and heard.
Today at 12:35pm Paris time, the Olympic torch left from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. It was supposed to travel through the capital for 28 km along the Champs Elysées, the City Hall and the Louvre to end its journey at 5pm in front of the French Olympic Committee. But as with its London journey, things didn't turn out as smoothly as predicted.
No less than 3, 000 policemen were called to protect the torch bearer, among which 100 policemen on roller blades, 100 policemen jogging, about 16 buses, 65 policmen on motorbikes.
Living not far from the Iron Lady, we went to see the torch relay. We arrived at 12pm near the Eiffel Tower, which was completely closed down. Dozens of demonstrators were already standing on the sidewalk, chanting and waving Tibet flags. Some of them argued with Chinese people, who were waving Chinese flags. All of this in front of TV cameras of course...
At 12:40pm, the police escort started moving, and so we knew that the torch was coming closer. Then from there all hell broke loose. Some activists were running on the streets and were immediately evacuated by policemen. Behind a bus full of Chinese journalists and cameramen, there was a mob of joggers and policemen. In the middle of all this, we could see the torch. People were booing and chanting "Liberté au Tibet!" (Free Tibet!) and trying to avoid the policemen.
Then the escort stopped, and the torch disappeared into a bus. It was so fast that we hardly saw what happened, but the thing is that for at least 100 meters there was no torch outside.
According to AFP, at least 6 people tried to douse the flame. For "technical reasons", the flame was extinguished by security officers at 13:01pm, only to be lit on at 13:50pm.
It is also reported that some Reporters Without Borders activists tied themselves to the Eiffel Tower, on the 1st floor, after unfurling a black flag of their now infamous image of the Olympic rings replaced with handcuffs.
Last but not least, Mireille Ferri, a French politician member of the Green Party, was arrested by the police as she was walking towards a meeting point with her fire extinguisher...
Yesterday's protests in London and today's in Paris have embarrassed UK and French security officials, and caused a public relations nightmare for China. Despite a year of planning, and the deployment of 2,000 policemen in London and 3,000 in Paris, the protestors were unstoppable and managed to break through the security cordon again and again. Earlier, various Chinese officials, including the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, had assured time and again that "attempts by anti-China elements to harass and disrupt the Olympic torch relay scheduled for next Wednesday in San Francisco are doomed to failure". A Chinese embassy official in Paris also promised the torch's relay would be a "great festival" and that any protests would come from a "tiny minority." Looks like they were all dead wrong.
More photos to come in a separate post, so watch this space.
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good to see those self-righteous antics! surprise party! I am thrilled
Maybe I am stupid and have been living in China too long, but what are the protests supposed to accomplish? I mean, what is the ultimate goal?
It's just too bad that the majority of Chinese people in China will never hear of this.
Well, if they're supposed to highlight the Tibetan issue outside of China, they're certainly succeeding. But yeah, if the "ultimate goal" is a
"free Tibet," not so much. But that's how popular protests work, right? High ideals and a lot of outrage with the practical hope of effecting some kind of change in the desired direction. It's gonna be a long, hot and very interesting summer.
I hope the French succeed in shortening the Chinese work week and lengthening vacation times.
If you all find these protests fascinating, wait until China tries to transverse Mt. Everest with the torch before May 15th. That's the deadline they've set for themselves completely ignoring the fact that the weather is the ultimate decider and usually the middle of May is too earlier for such a large expedition to be successful due to high winds and snowstorms. They have shut down the mountain on both sides to alleviate traffic on the slopes, but I wouldn't be suprised if numerous people die in their rather zealous push to the top.
Why do I keep reading about so and so website is blocked in China? Do I have a special line to the outside world? As far as I'm aware I have been using a standard China Telecom line without a proxy server in a private home and have been accessing the BBC, Wikipedia, anti-cnn.com, reading about all the about the protests supplied directly to me via google news. Are sites blocked on a regional basis? I was in gz.
They've unblocked a lot of website recently - - prior to now Wiki among others was inaccessible. My belief is that the government was pleasantly surprised to find that the nationalism they've carefully cultivated is now so pervasive that they can allow Chinese unfettered access to other news sources and their minds have been rinsed so thoroughly that they'll believe the OTHER news sources are lying, not their own beloved Xinhua.
I think China might find they have a dragon on their hands they can't easily control with this rising nationalism, but time will tell.
So how does Chinese nationalism compare to American nationalism or nationalism in any other country? As far as I can tell all news sources are biased, Chinese or otherwise. The big difference is that the Chinese news agencies can be counter on the fingers of one hand, while the biased western ones number in the hundreds.
I have no problem with Chinese nationalism, at the every least they don't go half way around the world to bomb people on camels.
"So how does Chinese nationalism compare to American nationalism or nationalism in any other country?"
American and European news sites also carry generous and scalding criticisms of domestic politics and society
At least with American nationalism, we don't hold another population hostage for 50 years and let millions of them starve to death and be tortured to keep a social and economic system we don't like from touching our border (NK-SK).
Stinky mutton kabob:
go back to your country. visit those local Indians and ask why most of their ancestors were killed. Ask those rednecks why you did have the term "Freedom fries" instead of " French fries" . Do some research on whom Texas, Hawaii, among other states belonged to originally.
Hey, based on that previous comment, it sounds like we finally agree, richardlee. Violation of indigenous people's rights to self-determination is immoral and knee-jerk patriotism is ignorant. Cool.
I do have a question, though. This "originally" business... it's kind of puzzling... to whom did, say, any given little bit of land within the borders of the present PRC "originally" belong?
Last time i checked the wikipedia it said Tibet belonged to China. The last time I checked with the UN, they said Tibet belongs to China. The last time I checked with President Chimpy Bush, he said Tibet belongs to China. The last time I checked with Froggy Sarkozy, he said Tibet belongs to China. Now you can call me stupid, but after reviewing all the above, something makes me think Tibet belongs to China.
Yeah, and last time I checked the Dalai Lama said Tibet belongs to the PRC, too, and he has no desire to lead a "splittist" movement. Yet last time I checked Chinese government media, they seemed to be a bit confused about the Dalai Lama's position. Like, hysterically confused.
And last time I checked all available and credible sources, China's human rights record is very bad (and yeah, the US has a really bad one, and so on, so no need to go down that road). And what many people are concerned about is human rights.
And I'm not trying to be snarky here, just trying to get at what seems to be one of the major sticking points in the China-West dialog: whether universal human rights are more important than national sovereignty. I think human rights are more important, but I'm well aware it's a minority opinion no matter the country when it comes to questions of sovereignty. But I think that's immoral and unethical. But yeah, yeah, "the real world."
And another thing: History. Don't stop checking (and you might want to broaden your research a bit).
And you might also check with some actual Tibetans. A lot of them obviously think a bit differently.
feds:
It's just too bad that the majority of Chinese people in China will never hear of this.
r u nuts? this is all over on chinese media!
At least with American nationalism, we don't hold another population hostage for 50 years and let millions of them starve to death and be tortured to keep a social and economic system we don't like from touching our border (NK-SK).
r u sure your talking about tibetan-chinese? i guess you got that from how the american and aussies treat the indigenious.
moron
watchbagdvd:
haaaaaaaaa tibet is part of china for 700 years. have you checked that?
Yeah dude, that's why the PRC had to invade (or "liberate," if you prefer) in 1951, because it was such a solid part of China.
I'd buy your historical continuity argument if the Mongols were still running things in Beijing, I guess, or maybe even in the Manchus were still in charge. But "China" hasn't even ruled *itself* continuously for more than a century. Look it up, ace.
1950, not 1951, since we're all being such nitpickers...
***At least with American nationalism, we don't hold another population hostage for 50 years and let millions of them starve to death and be tortured to keep a social and economic system we don't like from touching our border (NK-SK).***
You didn't have to starve the natives in the US, since you've already killed them off with biological weapons aka small pox infected blankets.
I am a white guy from Chicago who has lived in Shanghai 20 years. What I have seen from the over zealous demonstrators in Greece,Milan, London, Paris and soon to be SF in the US is just wrong. some of the the people running the tourch relay have been assaulted by these crazy individuals.
This is a once in a life time experience for the runners.
I don't mind peaceful protests on the sidelines, but to actually atack the runners is just as shameful as anything they are protesting.
China Jim
They're not attacking the runners Jim, they're protecting the torch from the Chinese.
comparing London, Paris, SF, obviously, Paris / French police force is the weakest.
i thought about to buy a Citron car before, considering its weak nature, i have decided to buy other brand from other country.