” VS’is obviously a failure. “The prefect of police Didier Lallement took his responsibilities, Thursday, June 9, before the Senate, when he was questioned about the police management around the final of the Real Madrid-Liverpool Champions League on May 28, at the Stade of France. Mentioning the people “jostling or attacked” and the “shaken image” of France, he confided: “It is a wound for me. Furthermore, the prefect of police said he “completely assumed” the figure of 30,000 to 40,000 people located in front of the Stade de France without a valid ticket, while stressing that he “never claimed that this figure was perfectly just “.
This estimate, taken up by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, is contested by the British, the press and many observers. Gérald Darmanin explained after the sports meeting that “30,000 to 40,000 English supporters found themselves at the Stade de France, either without a ticket or with falsified tickets”.
Didier Lallement expresses his “sincere regrets”
Didier Lallement was nevertheless satisfied that “the match is held and above all that there are no serious injuries and no deaths”. The prefect expressed his “sincere regrets” to British and Spanish supporters, and encouraged them to file a complaint, which has been possible since Monday by downloading a form from the website of the French Embassy in the United Kingdom.
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“The internal security forces were not responsible for checking tickets” at the level of pre-filtering at the exit of public transport, he noted, underlining “the responsibility of the organizer”. “With the late and massive arrival, this control was embolized” at the exit of the RER D, he continued, regretting that the police headquarters did not have “precise information” concerning the supporters of Liverpool.
Regarding the use of tear gas used by the police on the forecourt of the stadium, the prefect repeated twice that it was “the only police means to push back a crowd, except to charge it” , which would have been a “serious error”. He said he was “sorry” for the “people of good faith, there are some”, who breathed these gases, but, according to him, “the doctrine of the maintenance of order” is not in question. He conceded “a maneuvering problem”. “The decisions taken” made it possible to preserve “the physical integrity of people and the holding of the match”, he concluded.
The FFF accuses delinquency and the RATP
For its part, the French Football Federation (FFF) pointed to delinquency and the lack of coordination with the RATP among the major reasons which led to the incidents at the Stade de France during its hearing in the Senate. “We were not prepared for such an influx of offenders,” explained the director of institutional affairs of the FFF, Erwan Le Prévost. He cited “exceptional behavior, people who entered through restaurants”, others who “broke the gate of a school to return, people who entered through the construction site of a footbridge…”
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According to him, the lack of information from the RATP also contributed to the congestion at the gates of the stadium. “If we had had real-time information on the diversion of flows from RER B (partly on strike) to RER D, we could have redesigned our system at the start of the afternoon. The prefecture did not have the information either,” he added.
The hearing of the FFF made it possible to learn that the video surveillance images of the violence around the stadium were not kept. “It’s the law”, told AFP the president of the culture commission, Laurent Lafon. “We are surprised, the prefect took legal action very quickly, there was plenty of time to seize (these images), we need to understand what happened. “If it happened that they were not kept, that would pose a serious problem,” added the chairman of the law commission, François-Noël Buffet, who co-chaired the hearing.