Chinese tourists boycott France

They are the summer darlings of every top Parisian department store: Chinese tourists who save on hotel costs to lavish their savings on French fashion, perfume and designer labels they cannot buy at home.

But this year Paris's boutiques and tour firms have become the latest casualties of the diplomatic row surrounding the Olympic torch protests, as Chinese tourists boycott France as a holiday destination after warnings that it is unpatriotic.

Advice to Chinese tourists to stay away from France after pro-Tibet protests in Paris has been circulating on Chinese-language websites and has resulted in cancellations that tour operators in France say could lead to a 50% drop in business.

Sleepwalking in Paris

Marie Shek sits in a little office in a luxury apartment in Paris listening to the Israeli radio station FM 88 and making last-minute corrections to the catalog of the exhibition she is now curating. In another week, it will be sent to print, and she has to do the final proofreading. Doesn't she get lost in this huge apartment? "I do," she answered with a smile, "but I find refuge here, with my good friends" - namely, the many works of art and art books that fill the room.

Shek, 51, a curator and lecturer in art and a mother of two, came to Paris two years ago with her husband, Israeli Ambassador to France Danny Shek. This was the seventh time she has packed her bags and started over. In her eyes, the repeated uprootings have some advantages. And she has not had to pay for her spouse's success: In every country she has come to, she has advanced her career.