The senators believe that the incidents in the Champions League final at the Stade de France are not linked to the presence of Liverpool supporters “around the stadium”.
The incidents of the Champions League final on May 28 at the Stade de France are not linked to the presence of Liverpool supporters “around the stadium”, estimated the senators, pointing to the “failures” of the authorities. “It’s not because there were Liverpool supporters who accompanied their team that it went badly,” assured Laurent Lafon, chairman of the Senate’s culture committee, during a press briefing. .
Laurent Lafon and the chairman of the Law Commission François-Noël Buffet (LR, right), who presented the conclusions of the report, conversely pointed to the “failures” of the authorities during this fiasco, attributable, according to them, at the Paris police headquarters, while denouncing a bad “analysis” by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who had quickly incriminated the English supporters of Liverpool before apologizing late, had affirmed during his hearing before the senators that nearly “35,000” supporters with counterfeit tickets or without tickets were presented that evening at the Stade de France. A few days earlier, he had described as “root evil” this massive presence, according to him, of counterfeit tickets.
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The president of the culture committee considered that this “partial and imprecise analysis” of the Minister of the Interior after the incidents, placing responsibility on the presence of counterfeit tickets “was not the right one”. “This failure is due to the decisions taken by the Paris police headquarters”, underlined François-Noël Buffet (LR), during this press briefing. Laurent Lafon also mentioned “a series of malfunctions” and “failures” both “in the execution” and in the “preparation” of the event.
“Everyone was in their own lane without there being any real coordination,” also noted the senator. The event – between Real Madrid and Liverpool – which was to be a showcase just over a year from the Rugby World Cup and before the Summer Olympics in two years, turned into a nightmare for the forces order and the government: spectators without tickets climbing the gates of the stadium, others with tickets but unable to enter, families sprayed with tear gas by the police or thefts and attacks committed by opportunistic delinquents… The senatorial report recommends fifteen measures including that of “requiring operators” to keep video surveillance images “for the legal period of one month” or even “making the use of tamper-proof tickets compulsory”.
For Laurent Lafon, if “the management of the ticket office has been inadequate”, it “can in no way be considered as the sole cause or as the cause of the incidents”.