Protesters Support Tibet in the Streets of Paris
Posted on 04/07/2008 4:59:50 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
(CNN) -- The Olympic torch has been extinguished by officials and put on a bus during the Paris leg of its relay amid anti-China protests, The Associated Press has reported. The incident came one day after anti-Chinese demonstrators made its journey through London more like running the gauntlet than a journey of celebration.
An anti-China protester is restrained by French police before Monday's Olympic torch relay begins in Paris
1 of 3more photos » Thousands of French police are on duty to protect the Olympic torch after it departed from the Eiffel Tower at around 1030 GMT (0630 ET). It is then due to be carried through the boulevards of the French capital amid threats of protests.
Extremely tight security, however, could not stop determined human-rights activists in London Sunday from disrupting the torch relay several times, with UK police making more than two dozen arrests.
Paris police have conceived a security plan to keep the torch in a safe "bubble," during its 17-mile (28 km) journey, with a multi-layered protective force to surround the torch as it moves along the route.
French torchbearers will be encircled by several hundred officers, some in riot police vehicles and on motorcycles, others on rollerblades and on foot. Chinese torch escorts will immediately surround the torchbearer, with Paris police on rollerblades moving around them. French firefighters in jogging shoes will encircle the officers on rollerblades while motorcycle police will form the outer layer of security
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
That’s hillarious.
Rather Monty-Pythonish.
This is the first year I won’t be watching even a second of the Olympics.
It is a joke. How much is this going to cost the French? Several hundred officers? Riot police in vehilces, on foot, on motorcycles, and rollerblades? Multiple layers of security? For a torch? Sheesh, sports fans, this is nuts.
I rather like the “major award” leg lamp from Christmas Story.
When it gets to China it’ll starve for lack of oxygen and go out anyway. The pollution there makes L.A. look like the Arizona desert.
We are exporting job overseas while foreign corporations are buying up everything in sight.
Average amount of US companies sold to foreign acquirors per day as reported: $182,646,975
This is no longer the America I grew up in as a kid. We have sold our birthright for a few fast bucks.
Meanwhile, 80 Laotian unicyclists armed with machine guns will circle the motorcycles in counterclockwise fashion, supplemented by a crack squad of Eskimo ninjas riding in brightly colored armored rickshaws pulled by homosexual Maori tribesmen.
Fittingly, it will move on after being re-lit with a shabby Chinese cigarette lighter.
I’m hoping the crowds in San Francisco on Wednesday can do even more to disrupt the torch relay than those in Paris or London over the weekend. Finally, a useful outlet for all the nutjobs in SF. Throw the torch in the bay!
I just looked at the route on the official website. The torch is touching down on each of the continents before arriving in China. SF gets the North American part. It would have been wiser for the Chinese to have done a straight land route directly from Olympia Greece to Beijing. But nooooooooooooooooooooooooo thinking they were loved they had to go grandiose and go all over the world and now the whole thing is becoming a fiasco. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of totalitarians.
Check this out, folks!
WTF? No mimes?!
The torch went out. It’s over. The ChiComs can’t handle it and have shown themselves unworthy of the Olympic Games. Wimps! Take the torch away from them and cancel the games.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.