Thursday 7 August

0500 (Tahiti time) Groggy, we've arrived at Los Angeles. The gendarmes ask Paula to get her luggage and disembark. We all want to go with her but are told we are not permitted to do so. I tell a contract cleaner/caterer who comes on board that we are being held hostage against our will by the French military on board the plane. He seems about as interested as if I'd asked him what the weather was like. We demand to be taken off; they refuse. The plane is re-fuelled, some new aircrew come on. I ask to change clothes, which they finally allow. My feet have been freezing, so I get out of my shorts and barefeet into jeans and socks. We take off: destination unknown.

Later: Jean-Paul confirms that yes, we are going to Paris. We don't know whether its an arbitrary decision, if the plane was going there anyway, whether we will be expelled, or whether they want to put us in a French gaol. It's all very bizarre, like being a victim of an outrageous hoax or in a bad spy movie. I read, doze again. I go to the loo and sit for a while trying to collect my thoughts. The gendarmes obviously feel I have been in there far too long, and one who has been particularly hostile comes and swings open the door. I bang it shut and lock it again. I come out feeling contemptuous, hostile, invaded. I tell Jean-Paul angrily that they show no respect and that we are not murderers or dangerous criminals, that they have denied us basic human rights. He looks almost fearful of my rage, says it is nothing to do with him, he's just doing his job. I ask him if he likes the job he is doing. Sometimes they seem more intimidated by us than vice versa.