Rumsas' wife: Vilnius demo

Several dozen Lithuanian protestors gathered outside the French embassy in Vilnius on Friday to call for the release of cyclist Raimondas Rumsas's wife, who is being held in a French jail amid a Tour de France doping scandal.

NEWS: Rumsas refuses to come to France

Rumsas, the Lithuanian cyclist at the centre of the scandal, travelled to Latvia on Thursday to take a drugs test and quickly returned to Italy, a Lithuanian sports official said.

Mother of three Edita, the wife of the cyclist who was third in last month's race, has been in custody since being arrested after police found a collection of performance enhancing drugs in her car boot over a week ago.

"Let mother return to her children" read banners written in French, Lithuanian and English among the crowd at the embassy.

Waving Lithuanian flags and singing the Marseillaise, the demonstrators included politicians and show-biz personalities who criticized France and threatened to boycott French products.

Speakers at the rally said they thought Rumsas's wife was singled out because she was Lithuanian. "I believe if she were from Austria, Germany or another European country she would have been released within a few hours," said Vytautas Bogusis, a former member of parliament.

Accusing French police of holding his wife in jail as "a kind of bait" to lure him back, Rumsas has denied that she ever obtained doping products for him or that he ever took any. She said the drugs were for her ailing mother. Rumsas, who has been suspended from the Italian team Lampre-Daikin, invited French investigators to Italy to hear his side of the case and "clear up any misunderstanding about my moral and sporting integrity".