Flame of Shame: Anti-French demonstrations hit Chinese cities.

Anti-French protests erupt in China

BEIJING (AFP) - Hundreds of Chinese citizens protested on Saturday in Beijing and several other cities across China against France's attitude towards Tibet and the Olympic Games, according to police and witnesses.

Many of the demonstrators congregated in front of branches of Carrefour, the French supermarket chain accused by some Chinese of supporting Tibet, a fact it denies.

"There were a couple of hundred people, mostly young people in the morning, and by noon they were gone," a person working in a bookstore near one Carrefour store in the central city of Wuhan told AFP.

"I don't know whether they were persuaded to leave or what. I didn't see any signs, only some national flags," said the witness, who declined to be named.

There were 300 demonstrators to start off with, a separate source said quoting a Wuhan police report, but the number of protestors swelled as high as 10,000 towards noon.

AFP could not independently confirm the number, but photos posted on amateur photography website depicted huge crowds in front of a Carrefour in Wuhan, with one protestor carrying a French flag with the Nazi swastika painted on it.

A resident living on a street near one of the Carrefour shops in Wuhan, who refused to be named, said the protestors outside the store were asking people not to go inside.

At the protests, crowds chanted "Boycott Carrefour" and "Oppose Tibet independence," according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency.

It reported protests in Beijing, in the eastern cities of Hefei and Qingdao, in southeastern Kunming city, and in Wuhan.

Smaller protests erupted in Beijing around the French Embassy and the French School, Xinhua and other witnesses said.

"For the moment, it's pretty calm. There are about 50 to 100 protesters in front of the stores with banners, but the police are there," a Carrefour employee, who did not want to be named, said earlier on Saturday.

"There is a strong feeling that authorities do not want it to get out of hand."

Further protests took place outside a Carrefour store in the southern city of Shenzhen, according to an amateur film on a video-sharing website.

It was unclear whether the protest took place on Friday or Saturday, but the video was posted on the website on Saturday.

No injuries or arrests were reported at the protests.

Anti-French sentiment in China has been on the increase since the chaotic leg of the Paris Olympic torch relay, where pro-Tibet protesters tried to wrestle the flame out of the hands of Jin Jing, a disabled athlete.

The resentment has been amplified by French President Nicolas Sarkozy linking his appearance at the Olympic Games opening ceremony to progress on human rights in Tibet, following China's crackdown in the region.

Violence in Tibet's capital Lhasa erupted on March 14 after four days of peaceful protests against 57 years of Chinese rule, and spread into neighbouring Tibetan-populated areas.

Exiled Tibetan leaders say more than 150 people have died in the crackdown. China says Tibetan "rioters" have killed 18 civilians and two policemen.

The foreign affairs department of the Wuhan city government refused to give AFP any information, and the local police station said they had not heard about any protests.