The Olympic Torch has ignited controversy and large protests on the Paris and London legs of the relay, leading San Francisco to plan heightened security for it's arrival.
Reports say the Torch had to be extinguished three, possibly four times as it traveled through Paris on Monday before being taken onto a bus and driven to the relay's end point.
The Paris mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, cancelled a ceremony to mark the passage of the Beijing Olympic torch just after Green party members of the city council hung a Tibetan flag. There was also a flag in support of human rights hung from city hall.
Security officials extinguished the Olympic torch due to disruptions from protesters against China's crackdown in Tibet.
A French Green Party member was restrained by police after trying to grab the torch from the first of 80 bearers, former world 400-metres hurdles champion Stephane Diagana.
Several hundred demonstrators waving banners gathered on the Trocadero esplanade, just the other side of the river Seine from the Eiffel Tower, where the relay got under way at 1035 GMT, according to Reuters.
France has deployed more than 3,000 police officers, some on roller blades, along the 28-km (17 miles) Paris leg of the relay, to the Charlety stadium, on the southern edge of town, where the torch was due to arrive at 1500 GMT.
Reuters
PARIS—The relay of the Olympic torch through the streets of Paris by runners was cancelled on Monday and the flame was put on a bus at the request of Chinese authorities after huge pro-Tibetan protests, French television reported.
France's BFM television said the flame was carried onto the bus in front of the National Parliament and would be driven down to the final stage of the relay on the southern edge of Paris, rather than be taken there by runners.
"Boycott Chinese goods" and "Save Tibet" read some of the banners held by the demonstrators, watched by police in riot gear and prevented by barriers from getting near the course.
"We are doing our best but it will take the world to put pressure on China to help bring democracy and human rights to Tibet," Phurbu Dolker, a 21-year-old Tibetan refugee, told Reuters.
Thousands of protesters waving Tibetan flags and shouting "Shame on China" tried to disrupt the torch's run through London on Sunday, the British leg of the international relay billed by Beijing as the "harmonious journey."
Three members of Reporters Without Borders climbed up the steel tower and unfurled a 13-foot-long (four-metre) flag of the Olympic logo with the colored rings replaced by handcuffs.
A similar scenario played out the day before as the torch made its way through London.
Police there arrested 37 protesters after large crowds repeatedly interrupted the torch run.
Former children's television host Konnie Huq was one of the London torch bearers who almost had the flame ripped from her hands by protesters.
She later told reporters that she felt for the cause and said that China has a terrible human rights record.
From Paris the flame leaves for the Americas, with stops in San Francisco on Wednesday and Buenos Aires on Friday.
San Francisco will prepare for the torch by lining the streets of the relay route with several hundred policemen.
A San Francisco police spokesperson said security would be noticeably tougher than when the torch passed in 1992 and 1996.
The Olympic flame is expected to remain a magnet for protests against the brutality of the Chinese regime ahead of the August Games in Beijing.
The flame is due to return to Beijing on Aug. 6, two days before it will be used to light the cauldron at the Olympic opening ceremony.
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