Charles stuns Diana admirers

From combined dispatches

PARIS — Britons may have given a thumbs up for Prince Charles to marry longtime lover Camilla Parker Bowles, but in Paris, admirers of the late Prince Diana who came to see the tunnel where she was killed were scandalized.

“Oh, he’s so bad,” Han Yoon-hee of South Korea said of the heir to the British throne.

“Unbelievable,” concurred Chelsea Lu of Taiwan.

Fond memories of Diana burn bright at the bronze flame above the tunnel that has become, in admirers’ minds at least, a shrine to the woman who touched many hearts worldwide — or fed their appetite for scandal.

“Diana, China misses you!” reads one of the gushing graffiti that cover the stone balustrade above the yawning mouth of the tunnel that runs alongside the River Seine.

“Diana, my princess, I love you,” says another in French.

Across the English Channel, two-thirds of Britons accept Charles’ plans to marry Mrs. Parker Bowles, his mistress during his turbulent marriage to Diana, according to a poll commissioned by the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

But the graying prince faces a struggle to convince the nation he should one day be king, the Telegraph survey showed.

“He cannot remarry and ascend the throne,” Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, wrote in the Daily Mirror. “Charles should renounce his birthright and allow Prince William to be heir apparent.”

Royal watchers say Charles, 56, would never consider such a move, which would overturn the centuries-old convention of the monarch’s eldest son assuming the throne.

Aware of public misgivings over his lover, Charles ruled out Mrs. Parker Bowles becoming queen once he becomes king.

The Telegraph’s survey was conducted within hours of Thursday’s announcement that Charles is to marry the 57-year-old mother of two on April 8.

People want the monarchy to skip a generation, with Queen Elizabeth II passing on the crown to her grandson Prince William, 22, on her death or abdication.

The survey found 41 percent would prefer William to be the next monarch, with 37 percent favoring Charles. A similar poll in November 2002 put Charles at 48 percent and William at 28 percent.