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.