ARIS - The center of this usually bustling city was virtually deserted yesterday morning as thousands of Parisians stayed home and watched live television coverage of what one newspaper here called ''the funeral of the century'' for Diana, Princess of Wales.
All the main television and radio networks had complete coverage of the event, including commentary about her marriage and divorce and troubled relationship with the royal family. Diana was widely admired in France for her beauty, charm, and humanitarian work. But there has not been the tremendous outpouring of emotion here over her death like that in Britain, even though her death in a car crash early last Sunday happened in Paris.
''The French are sad about her tragic death,'' said Francois Gonzague, a 61-year-old retired flight attendant who put off her usual Saturday morning trip to the market to watch the funeral on television. ''But we saw her as a real person with qualities and faults, not as an icon.''
Nevertheless, the day after her death Parisians spontaneously erected an altar of flowers and candles at the Pont de l'Alma - the tunnel alongside the Seine River where the fatal car crash took place.
Yesterday, while thousands of people were huddled around their television sets throughout France, dozens of tourists and Parisians gathered at the site. ''I drive through this tunnel everyday when I go to work,'' said Adolpho Galine, 41, a construction worker. ''I think this tunnel is now a religious place, a link between our city and Diana.''
Although most of the messages praised Diana, one expressed rage at the chauffeur.
Henri Paul, the driver of the Mercedes that carried him, Diana, and companion Dodi Fayed to their deaths and seriously injured a bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, had been drinking heavily before the accident, according to judicial sources.
A blood test carried out by the police showed that Paul had consumed more than three times the legal limit of alcohol. But the families of Paul and Fayed contested the test and demanded that the police carry out another one, which they did yesterday.
Paul was supposed to have been buried in Lorient, his hometown in Brittany in western France, at about the same time that Diana was laid to rest in England. But his family postponed the funeral for an unknown period so that the blood test could be carried out.
