Le week-end du 1is May, police commissioner Thibaut Delaunay experienced an unexpected burst of notoriety, his surname appearing on many banners in French football stadiums. A way to make known the one who has been leading the national division for the fight against hooliganism (DNLH) since September 2020… to blame him for his absence.
Mr. Delaunay implicitly admitted, in September 2021, that the DNLH poorly justified its name, hooliganism being “residual” in France. The season had however started with serious incidents in the stadiums, but these overflows quickly ceased.
National Hooliganism Division, Your inaction is equal to the deprivations of liberty of s… https://t.co/wXCUMGECCL
Commentators inclined to see it as a “bad French” then had to note that the Premier League, an English championship, a model constantly invoked for the domestication of the public, knew worse. The Time.news of supporterism has, however, been that of numerous and sometimes unexpected conflicts: between French football and its supporters, there are fifty shades of crisis.
No “fumis” without fire
The ultras of Paris-Saint-Germain thus celebrated their tenth title of champion of France… outside the Parc des Princes, to mark a disapproval less turned against the players than against the sports policy of the club.
At the other end of the ranking, the two kops of Saint-Etienne have, a few months apart, precipitated by their pyrotechnic excesses the closing of stands, depriving their team of precious support. The malaise is so deep that it borders on the scuttling of a club whose supporters want to rush the sale.
In another green institution, in National (3e division), supporters of Red Star are opposed to its takeover by an investment fund, and caused the final interruption of the meeting against Sète, on April 15, after throwing smoke bombs on the ground. The modus operandi was similar to Nancy on April 22, augmented by a funeral procession before a game that marked the club’s relegation – taken over by a Sino-American fund in 2020.
Even Olympique Lyonnais, long the scene of harmonious relations between the presidency and the stands, has seen the frustrations and disavowal of a governance deemed obsolete worsen. Anger, too, in Lille, following the sporting disappointments after the national title won last season.
No “fumis” without fire: the supporters maintain their flame and their feeling of embodying a counter-power within clubs of which they feel dispossessed. Beyond the well-known divorce with the leaders, the banners also turn against the sports and public authorities, followers of collective sanctions and restrictions or bans on movement.
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