Paris torch run canceled due to protests

PARIS -- Police say the last section of the Olympic torch relay through Paris will not be run because of chaotic protests.

Security officials snuffed out the torch and rushed it onto a bus at least five times because of the raucous protests against China's human rights record.

A police spokeswoman says a vehicle now will carry the torch for the entire last part of the route, to a sports stadium in the south of Paris. The French Olympic Committee says it hopes that runners still might be able to carry the torch at the very end.

A Paris police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, says at least 28 people have been taken into custody at the protests.

Security officials snuffed out the Olympic torch and carried it through Paris in the safety of a bus at least five times Monday as chaotic protests against China's human rights record turned the relay into a chaotic series of stops and starts.

Despite massive security, 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.

At the start of the relay, on the Eiffel Tower's first floor, Green Party activist Sylvain Garel lunged for the first torchbearer, 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 a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags soon interrupted it by confronting the torchbearer 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.

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 put on a 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.

The flame was whisked into a bus again outside the National Assembly, where protesters gathered. A session of parliament was interrupted and a banner on the building read: "Respect for Human Rights in China." City Hall draped its building with a banner reading, "Paris defends human rights around the world."

Other demonstrators scaled the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame cathedral and hung banners depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.

About 3,000 officers were deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and with inline roller skates.

Pro-Tibet advocate Christophe Cunniet said he and around 20 other Tibet advocates were detained after they waved Tibetan flags, threw flyers and tried to block the route. Cunniet said police kicked him, cutting his forehead. "I'm still dazed," he said.

Mireille Ferri, a Green Party official, said she was held by police for two hours because she approached the Eiffel Tower area with a fire extinguisher.