Using project access token to clone a private gitlab repository

I have a private repository that is hosted on gitlab.com. I've created a project access token with read_repository scope. The intention is that any user with the project access token can clone the repository.

I'm issuing:

git clone https://xyz@gitlab.com/user/repo.git

and when prompted for my password, I enter the project access token, but am told:

Cloning into 'repo'...
Password for 'https://xyz@gitlab.com': 
remote: You are not allowed to download code from this project.
fatal: unable to access 'https://gitlab.com/user/repo.git/': The requested URL returned error: 403

I've tried creating a number of additional project access tokens with multiple scopes in addition to read_repository, but get the same error. I've also tried cloning using the project access token directly in the clone:

git clone https://xyz:MY_ACCESS_TOKEN@gitlab.com/user/repo.git

but get the same error.

Clarifications

All project access tokens I've created have an expiry date set to a month from now. The xyz string is, to my understanding, irrelevant, since it's a placeholder for the username. From the gitlab documentation, it seems this can be any non-empty string.

What does the xyz stands for ?
Are you the owner of the repository / do you have permissions ?

--- What you actually want to do is add the oauth2 protocol before the actual token

git clone https://oauth2:MY_ACCESS_TOKEN@gitlab.com/user/repo.git

If it doesnt help, try executing a rest api using this token to make sure it is valid.

Try Referring this post for further investigating.

In my case, the issue was that we can not use "Guest" tokens in private repos even with permissions will be 403. Using "Reporter" or any other works