Jhender

what a day. it was really amazing. the short summary of it is that there were widespread and highly charged up protests throughout the route, the procession was repeatedly disrupted, cut short, many banners were put up, lots of Tibetian and RSF flags were waved. stunning.

now for the details.

the route starts at Tour Eiffel (that’s Eiffel Tower if anyone doesn’t recognise the french name, but Eiffel Tower sounds horribly wrong so i’ll use Tour Eiffel) at 12h35. i actually went there much earlier to see if it’s covered in snow, but it wasn’t, and the police closed off the entire tower for the day, pity for tourists. if i had known earlier, i would have gone to Trocadero and watched the protests there, apparently that was one of the main sites, but unfortunately i wasn’t on the private mailing list.

anyhow i got out of the RER C station at 12h15, welcomed by two groups of protesters. One pro-China, and the other Pro-Tibet/Liberty/RSF. they were waving flags and shouting at each other. it was more like they were quarreling. i was like, er, okay, abit too close to me for comfort, im afraid that i’ll get mistaken for a china chinese and get into trouble. nobody started fighting anyway, they’re too mature for that.

hm. LeFigaro.fr has a nice timeline of what happened today, let’s go by that to be more systematic. apparently scuffles started at 11h at Trocadero. a few hundred protesters were present.

at 12h35 Stéphane Diagana, the first runner starts off from Tour Eiffel. now many things happen here. (1) 3 RSF climbers unfurl a RSF flag on the Tour Eiffel. apparently they climbed up, somehow. sheesh they’re real professional. (2) 3 people chain themselves to the tower, i believe they were also some distance up. craziness. later on removed by the firemen. (3) Sylvian Garel, president of Green Party tried to approach the runner, he got pretty close but was stopped. (4) Mireille Ferri, vice-president of Green Party was stopped on her way to Eiffel, carrying a fire extinguisher.

next within 15 minutes, protesters had lain down on the road. the flame was bundled onto the bus to protect it. … diao. i believe they extinguished it too. and then more ppl try to run in, get wrestled away.. common. all this repeatedly occurs. it’s insane you know. i overheard one spectator saying “28 kilomètres comme ça, ça va être dur” = 28 km like this, it’s gonna be hard (for the police). and it really was. in total the flame was taken up to the bus 4 times, which is a big deal.

another of RSF’s flag was unfurled on a building on Champs Elysées. and also on Hôtel de Ville and Notre-Dame. the Notre-Dame flag was spearheaded by Robert Ménard, secretary general of RSF. He, and other pros, climbed up Notre-Dame last night, and hid up there until this afternoon. It took 3h30 to climb up. I salute them for it. firstly coz it’s a mad idea to climb Notre-Dame; secondly remember it was so cold last night that it snowed, poor guys; thirdly they hid up there for 3/4 of a day. wow that is some solid planning.

at Hôtel de Ville, Green Party activists unfurled a Tibetian and a RSF flag. there was originally supposed to be a special 30min ceremony in front of Hôtel de Ville. but the chinese organisers (+ chinese embassy) decided to cancel it; the flame was also put on the bus and sent straight towards Assemble Nationale (Parliament), one of the many route changes. interestingly on the road to Arc de Triomphe it was on the bus, and near Tuileries it was also on the bus, no wonder it moved so fast when i tried to chase it on the metro. yeah so the ceremony was cancelled, by the chinese, in case you read some news that said it was cancelled by Paris. obviously not. pity, no wonder i didnt get to see anything. by this time the procession had already become quite disorganised and chaotic, rather unlike what it was supposed to be at the start.

after this i din have time or energy to continue chasing, remember im still limping after the marathon. good thing too, coz they changed the route and practically skipped the rest. so it’s reported that the flame-on-bus went to Assemblé Nationale, and 40 MPs from both Left and Right demonstrated outside the building with banners, chanting Liberty for Tibet and then sung La Marseillaise, the french national anthem. i think parliament was supposed to be in sessions.

at this point the chinese officials gave up on the route and took the bus straight to the stadium. some scuffles occurred again outside the stadium.

some amusing tidbits:

> “Notre caméra a filmé le départ de Stéphane Diagana mais 150 mètres plus loin, [après un premier incident], la police l’a empêché de continuer”, a expliqué Daniel Bilalian, le directeur des sports de France Télévisions, après que la retransmission en direct du parcours de la flamme a été interrompue au journal de la mi-journée de France 3. “Le réalisateur n’a pu reprendre la cérémonie qu’en bas [du siège] de France Télévisions”, dans le 15e arrondissement.

Le présentateur du journal du 12/13 a regretté être “privé d’images”, commentant : “On croyait que ce serait du côté des Chinois, mais visiblement même en France il y a des problèmes”. Dans un communiqué, le SNJ de France 3 s’est alarmé d’une “censure”. “Voilà ce que le CIO fera en Chine, si des événements se déroulent pendant les directs des épreuves sportives”, écrit le syndicat, qui a cependant pris “acte” par la suite des assurances de M. Bilalian selon lesquelles “le CIO n’a rien à voir là-dedans”. – (Avec AFP.)

> “Tiananmen 1989 – Lhasa 2008”

> “For a bloody world welcome to the Olympics made in China”

> “Liberté au Tibet”

> The 5:30 Eurostar train from London to Paris on Sunday evening carried a large contingent of activists moving from one protest to the next, including Tibetan nuns who had been jailed in China for 12 years and Tibetan athletes who live in Switzerland and who call themselves Team Tibet. Busloads of protesters arrived from Belgium and the Netherlands.

> At the International Campaign for Tibet telephones have been ringing off the hook with calls from media outlets, politicians, and people wanting to sign petitions and organize events, said Jan Willem den Besten, the Dutch campaign coordinator.

> The Chinese Olympic relay – from Athens to Istanbul, St. Petersburg, London and Paris so far – has created a bond among protesters, some of whom had little in common.

> In Paris, at the Trocadéro plaza across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, the human rights organization Amnesty International and the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders protested side by side with representatives from a banned underground Chinese democracy party, Taiwan nationalists and proponents of independence for Uighurs, a Muslim minority in western China.

> US Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called on President George W Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympics unless China improved its human rights record.

> LeFigaro estimated that it cost more than 400 000 euros for the entire security operation

from various sources:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2008/04/07/01001-20080407ARTFIG00439-la-flamme-olympiqueest-partie-de-la-tour-eiffel.php

http://www.lemonde.fr/sports/article/2008/04/07/la-flamme-olympique-est-dans-les-rues-de-paris_1031689_3242.html#ens_id=1020806

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/339968/1/.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3697392.ece

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/07/europe/07torch-reuters.php

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/07/europe/torch.php

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7334545.stm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080407/ts_nm/olympics_torch_france_dc

http://sport.france2.fr/jo/41774622-fr.php

http://www.france2.fr/ [some videos available, if they're still there]

my photos:

in this video we see the combatting group of pro-china and pro-RSF protesters clashing onto/spilling onto the streets. the riot police run over to control the situation. …

pre-starting bits of the procession, with the advertisers. the man is hurrying everyone up coz evidently they are ultra behind time due to many many complications.

and the actual procession. the insane number of police vehicles,and policemen running alongside. and the group of blue people protecting the flame bearer. it’s just darn amusing to see them running here and there. and what’s worse was that this descended into chaos as the afternoon continued. later parts was just a desperate bid to keep moving forward, keep to the route, and spend as much time as possible off the bus.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/04/07/oly.torchrelay/index.html?eref=edition_europe

CNN has some nice videos