It’s time for political explanation. Four days after the chaos around the Stade de France, the Ministers of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, explain themselves this Wednesday before the Senate, dominated by the right, on the incidents which disturbed the football Champions League final. The two ministers will be heard jointly for two hours by the Law and Culture Commissions from 5 p.m., during a session open to the press and broadcast on the Senate website.
With the approach of the legislative elections (June 12 and 19), the affair took a highly political turn, in particular on France’s ability to organize major sporting events one year from the 2023 Rugby World Cup and two years from the Games. Olympics in Paris. François-Noël Buffet (LR), president of the law commission, warned a few hours before the hearing on franceinfo, that he was waiting for a “speech of truth”. In a joint statement signed with the chairman of the Culture Committee, he deemed Tuesday “important to ensure that all the lessons of this evening (be) drawn quickly to reassure the world about France’s ability to host major events”.
But until then, the controversy remains lively around the device for maintaining order on the sidelines of this match, won by Real Madrid (1-0) against Liverpool. Liverpool club president Tom Werner expressed his indignation in a letter to Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, after his remarks and those of Gérald Darmanin, who have been repeating since Saturday evening that British fans are largely responsible for the incidents. , with a “massive, industrial and organized fraud of counterfeit banknotes”.
Misidentified real banknotes
These charges bring back to Liverpool supporters the horrible memories of the Hillsborough disaster, which killed 97 people in 1989 in a crowd movement for which Reds fans had long been held responsible before the bad decisions of the police are recognized. “Your comments are irresponsible, unprofessional and totally disrespectful,” Tom Werner wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Liverpool Echo daily. On Tuesday, the Minister of Sports opened the door to the start of a mea culpa. “We have Liverpool supporters who were in good standing, whose evening was either ruined or some of them were unable to attend this match, and there we clearly owe them an apology”.
However, the figures put forward by the French government remain highly criticized, in England as in France. According to Gérald Darmanin, “30,000 to 40,000 English supporters found themselves at the Stade de France, either without a ticket or with falsified tickets”. This situation has, according to the authorities, led near the Stade de France to massive congestion, overflows and an intervention by the police, which did not cause any serious injuries. A “serious lie”, denounced Marine Le Pen on Wednesday, the far-right presidential candidate, believing that Gérald Darmanin “should consider on his own that he must leave”.
The French Football Federation defended the reinforced system put in place around the stadium. For now, the FFF (French Football Federation) and UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) have assessed the number of “counterfeit tickets scanned” at “2,800” on Saturday, according to sources familiar with the matter, confirming a Information from RMC Sports. But among these 2,800 counterfeit tickets may include real tickets that have been incorrectly activated, according to Pierre Barthélémy, lawyer for groups of French supporters present at the stadium on Saturday. “There were breakdowns, computer bugs at the gates which caused some real banknotes to be scanned as fake,” he explained.
For their part, the intelligence services had alerted the authorities before this final. Dated May 25, a note from the National Division for the Fight against Hooliganism (DNLH) written in connection with the intelligence services, of which AFP became aware, reported “about 50,000 English supporters present in the capital. french (who) will not be ticket holders.
On the judicial level, three men, foreigners in an irregular situation, were sentenced Tuesday in immediate appearance to sentences ranging from six months in prison suspended to ten months in prison for thefts committed on supporters.