The ban on the movement of supporters decided for eight football matches scheduled for this weekend in France has been lifted for four of them by the Council of State, announced Friday evening the highest administrative court, seized by the National Supporters Association (ANS). “The Council of State has followed our requests. Lensois supporters can go to Montpellier. Reims supporters can go to Nice. Auxerre supporters can go to Troyes. Bordeaux supporters can go to Angoulême,” wrote the ANS on his X account.
“Disproportionate” measures according to the Council of State
In a decree published Friday in the Official Journal, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had banned the travel of football supporters for five matches of the 15th day of Ligue 1 and three matches of the 8th round of the Coupe de France scheduled for this weekend -end. These meetings, estimated the minister, present a “real and serious risk of clashes between supporters”, in a context of “exacerbation of the increasingly serious violence observed since the start of the football sports season”.
The National Association of Supporters had contacted the Council of State to have the ministerial and prefectural decrees applicable to four of these matches lifted: Montpellier-Lens (which will kick off this Friday at 9:00 p.m.) and Nice-Reims ( Sunday 1:00 p.m.) in Ligue 1, and Angoulême-Bordeaux (Saturday 2:00 p.m.) and Saint-Méziery-Auxerre (Saturday 5:00 p.m. in Troyes) for the 8th round of the Coupe de France. The Council of State, meeting in the afternoon, ruled in favor of his case.
He explains in his decision that “the banning measures concerning people claiming to be supporters of (these clubs) or behaving as such (…) are disproportionate and, as a result, seriously and clearly harm disproportionate to the fundamental freedoms of these people.
“A moratorium on fan travel”
The ANS had decided, however, not to contest the travel bans on supporters affecting the PSG-Nantes (Saturday 9:00 p.m.), Lyon-Toulouse (Sunday 5:05 p.m.) and Lorient-Marseille (Sunday at 8:45 p.m.) matches as part of the 15th day of L1 and Saint-Etienne-Nîmes (Saturday 3:00 p.m.) in the Coupe de France. “These decrees are very questionable. But they will attract very large numbers of people. It is too late to upset their framework,” she explained in the morning.
“These contentious appeals,” added the ANS, “are absolutely not intended to minimize the seriousness of last Saturday’s tragedy” in Nantes, where a supporter of the Loire-Atlantique club was killed in an altercation between Nantes and Nice supporters. . On Thursday, RC Lens also expressed “its biggest questions” about the prefectural decree prohibiting the travel of its supporters to Montpellier, arguing in particular that this meeting was absolutely not “classified as a risk”.
Tuesday, the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra declared herself in favor of “a moratorium on the travel of supporters”, by December 18, while the drama in Nantes was added to the serious incidents experienced by the French football this season.
On October 29, a match between OM and Olympique Lyonnais was canceled and postponed due to the stones of the buses of OL players and their supporters, en route to the Vélodrome stadium, by Marseille supporters. Former OL coach Fabio Grosso was injured in the face. Nazi salutes and monkey cries were then reported in the visitor parking area of the Vélodrome stadium. After the incidents of October 29, several investigations were opened by the Marseille prosecutor’s office.