The senators intended to shed light on the incidents that occurred at the Stade de France on May 28. But over the hearings of those responsible for the Champions League final, the situation becomes more complex. “The more we advance, the more gray areas emerge and new information challenges us”, summarizes Michel Savin, senator Les Républicains (LR) of Isère. Thursday, June 9, parliamentarians learned with amazement of the destruction, for lack of having been requisitioned, of the CCTV images of the Stade de France.
Officials of the French Football Federation (FFF) were invited to explain the “malfunctions seen by millions of viewers”, as formulated by the president of the culture and education committee of the Senate, Laurent Lafon. Either scenes of panic on the outskirts of the Dionysian enclosure, supporters sprayed with tear gas, others trying to enter without a ticket; and, finally, a delayed kickoff of thirty-six minutes before the eyes of hundreds of millions of viewers.
If they filmed all evening, the Stade de France video surveillance cameras will not be able to clarify the situation. “The images are available for seven days. They are then automatically destroyed. We should have had a requisition to provide them to the different populationssaid the director of institutional relations of the FFF, Erwan Le Prévost. Having been at the security PC all day, the images are extremely violent. »
An announcement which surprised the senators, while the device of maintaining order implemented during this match having opposed Liverpool to Real Madrid is the subject of a lively controversy. “It means that images that you consider very violent existed and that there was no request from the authorities, in particular from the prefecture. (…) There is evidence that has been destroyed by, at least, incompetence”retorted the socialist senator from Paris David Assouline.
The images requested… this Thursday
Why did the Bobigny prosecutor’s office, which opened an investigation on Tuesday May 31 into counterfeit banknote fraud following a report from the prefect of police, not request these images? “The only investigation officially referred to the prosecution concerns counterfeit notes, and there is no need for images from the FFF to identify the traffickers”assures a source close to the investigation, nevertheless surprised by the destruction of the images. “The legal retention period for video surveillance is one month” at the Stade de France, justifies this same source.
You have 64.76% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.