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PARIS — China dubbed its Olympic torch relay the “Journey of Harmony,” a 21-nation promotional tour for the most expensive Games the world has seen and for a host nation eager to showcase its rising wealth and diplomatic clout. But what was supposed to be a majestic procession through the French capital resulted in waves of chaos on Monday, as human rights groups used the event to assail China’s record on rights and make the Olympic Games an increasingly delicate political challenge for the governing Communist Party. China has spent eight years and tens of billions of dollars preparing to host the Summer Games, which Beijing has envisioned as a kind of coming-of-age party to showcase its rapid growth. But the outbreak of violent unrest in Tibet and a continuing crackdown there by Chinese security forces has emboldened China’s critics, a diverse coalition of rights groups whose demands are often ignored in China and played down by Western leaders eager to promote Chinese trade and investment. Passing through Paris under armed guard, the torch was extinguished several times, and police officers moved it aboard a bus to protect it as demonstrators swarmed the security detail. Chinese Olympic organizers abruptly canceled the last leg, as well as a stop at City Hall, where a banner proclaimed, “Paris Defends Human Rights Everywhere in the World.” About 3,000 police officers — on foot, horseback, inline skates, motorcycles and even boats on the Seine — had been deployed in an attempt to prevent a repetition of scenes played out in London on Sunday, when the relay turned into a tumult of scuffles and dozens of arrests. The torch ceremonies have focused attention on causes that have languished on the world’s back burner for decades. At the International Campaign for Tibet, telephones have rung continually with calls from news media outlets, politicians and people wanting to sign petitions and hold events, said Jan Willem den Besten, the Dutch campaign coordinator. “What is most dramatic is to see how broad and deep the support has become,” Mr. den Besten said. “You almost have to feel sorry for the Chinese because it’s turned completely against the public image they wanted to present.” In San Francisco, where the torch is to arrive on Wednesday, several protesters scaled the vertical suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge and unfurled two large banners reading, “One World, One Dream,” and “Free Tibet 08.” At least seven people were arrested. At the same time, the city’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, was huddling with the police to consider last-minute changes to the torch’s route and new security measures, said Nathan Ballard, a city spokesman. “If adjustments to the route for safety reasons are necessary, then adjustments will be made,” said Mr. Ballard, who said the mayor had been in contact with American and Chinese officials and with protest groups. Also on Monday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton joined a small but growing number of leading political figures in the United States and Europe who have called for a boycott of the opening ceremony of the Games. In Paris, at the Trocadéro, opposite the Eiffel Tower, human rights organizations like Amnesty International and press freedom groups like Reporters Without Borders protested side by side with representatives of a banned underground Chinese democracy party, Taiwan nationalists and proponents of independence for the Uighurs, a Muslim minority in western China. “We all have the same problem,” Can Asgar, a leader of the Uighur diaspora in Munich, yelled into a microphone at the Trocadéro. “Freedom for Uighurs. Freedom for Tibet. We must fight together.” The Eurostar train from London to Paris on Sunday evening carried a large contingent of advocates 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 call themselves Team Tibet. Busloads of protesters arrived from Belgium and the Netherlands. The range of China’s opponents was so thoroughly covered that it included a protest by Amnesty International on behalf of a blind Chinese human rights lawyer who is in prison in Beijing. Paris became a scene of disarray. At least one protester came within a yard of the swarm of police officers and Chinese Olympic officials crowding around the torchbearer. On several occasions, officers tackled protesters. The police said about 20 people had been arrested. A man identified by the police as a Green Party activist was grabbed by security officers as he headed for Stéphane Diagana, the president of France’s athletics league and a former world hurdles champion, who was carrying the torch from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. Again and again, protesters interrupted the procession. On a street along the Seine, demonstrators forced officers to retreat with the torch onto a bus to continue along the route, the police said. Around the same time, the flame went out. The torch went out more than four times, according to the French Olympic Committee, as the police repeatedly moved it aboard the bus, including the final stretch between City Hall and the stadium that houses the French Olympic Committee’s offices. In Beijing on Monday, a spokeswoman for the city’s Olympic organizing committee — speaking before the disruptions in France — vowed that the relay would continue on its international route. “The torch represents the Olympic spirit, and people welcome the torch,” said Wang Hui, the spokeswoman. “The general public is very angry at this sabotage by a few separatists.” Meanwhile, the chairman of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, used a meeting of national Olympic committee representatives in Beijing on Monday to criticize the London protests, but also to call for a rapid and peaceful solution to the confrontations in Tibet. He rejected the idea of boycotting the Games. “The torch relay has been targeted,” Mr. Rogge said in a speech to the Association of National Olympic Committees, according to Reuters. “The I.O.C. has expressed serious concerns and calls for rapid, peaceful resolution in Tibet.” “Violence for whatever reason is not compatible with the values of the torch relay and the Olympic Games,” he said. “Some people have played with the idea of boycotts. As I speak today, there is no momentum for a general boycott.” But after the meeting, the leader of the Norwegian Olympic Committee, Tove Paule, said in an interview that the torch relay should be reconsidered. “The International Olympic Committee may have a bigger problem when the torch relay continues, if we get more of these demonstrations,” Ms. Paule was quoted as saying by NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, Reuters reported. When the flame moves to San Francisco on Wednesday, it will be the sixth stop on its monthlong international tour. Amnesty International and several other rights groups have pledged to rally along the route of the torch, which is scheduled to be run six miles along the city’s scenic waterfront. A heavy law enforcement presence is expected, with local police officers supplemented with officers from other California cities and state and federal agencies. The Federal Aviation Administration said it would also enact a low-altitude, no-flight zone over the route. Ngodup Tsering, the president of Tibetan Association of Northern California, said he expected several thousand protesters to converge on San Francisco, which he hoped would not escalate into the type of scrum seen in Paris on Monday. “We are trying to educate our people, to remind them that they are here to be nonviolent,” said Mr. Tsering, whose group is based in Berkeley, Calif. “We have to be prepared, and very calm and nonviolent.”
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