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French President Nicolas Sarkozy is pulling out the stops to try to calm an angry spat with China sparked by chaotic demonstrations surrounding the parading of the Olympic flame in Paris this month.
Facing an internet-based campaign of protests and boycott threats against French companies, Sarkozy is dispatching
envoys to China and written to a disabled Chinese athlete who found herself at the centre of the Paris demos on April 7 and has gained hero status back home.
"I was shocked to see what happened in the torch relay," Sarkozy said in his letter to Jin Jing, a 27-year-old fencer who has been dubbed "the smiling angel in a wheelchair" by China's official media for fending off protesters' efforts to grab the flame.
"It is understandable that the Chinese people feel hurt. I strongly condemn what they did," said Sarkozy. Those behind "this painful incident" were not representative of the friendship between China and France, he said, inviting Jin to France.
The letter was handed to Jin on Sunday by the president of the French Senate, Chistian Poncelet, one of several leading French politicians who are working to ease the ugly storm.
On Thursday, former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, in China on a long-scheduled visit, is to meet Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, and Sarkozy's personal envoy, David Levitte, is due to arrive at the weekend.
The Paris demonstrations have been the most spectacular so far in the series of protests that have accompanied the torch in its global relay.
Despite being swathed by a Chinese security squad and battalions of French police, the flame was ignominiously diverted from its scheduled route and even taken by bus to avoid confrontation. It had to be extinguished several times and relit from a backup flame.
The chaotic images have been seized upon in China as a grievous insult to the nation ahead of its defining moment, the Olympic Games. Internet chat rooms have buzzed with angry talk of punishing France and firms perceived of supporting the Dalai Lama.
The supermarket giant Carrefour, which has 122 stores in China, has borne the brunt of the criticism. Last week, rallies demanding a boycott of Carrefour were held outside some of its branches, prompting their closure in at least three cities.
Most of the rallies were small, gathering a dozen or so demonstrators, but one in Wuhan drew several thousand people, and placards included one of the tricolor emblazed with Nazi swastikas and another that likened Joan of Arc, France's patron saint, to a whore.
In Beijing, a dozen cars waving the Chinese flag and bearing the slogan "Tibet is China" drove around in front of the French embassy before police closed off the street.
In addressing the row, Sarkozy is having to tread between domestic pressures on one side and the concerns of French diplomats and businessmen on the other. Opinion polls show strong sympathy for the Tibetan cause and support for a boycott of the Games' opening ceremony by Sarkozy, although not of the Games themselves. On Monday, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, named the Dalai Lama a citizen of honour of the French capital.
Suspicions run deep in Paris that the nationalist outpourings in China are being catalysed, or at least channelled, by official organisations such as the Communist Youth League. If so, this is a Pandora's Box, according to French analysis.
If allowed to build momentum, the demonstrations could veer out of control, either for the foreign country targeted for public wrath - as was the case in anti-Japanese riots in 2005 - or for the ruling Communist Party, as in 1989.
"The Chinese leaders know how nationalist exultation can also be used as a lightning conductor to deflect a thousand other frustrations," over corruption, rural taxation and unemployment, Le Figaro said. "Opening the valve of nationalism can be useful from time to time for easing social pressures, but it can swiftly turn out of control."
