Despite the alert, the celebrations for winning the Champions League turned into acts of vandalism. Hundreds injured and arrested and now there is fear for the parade of champions…
It was a night of celebration and fear. Paris and France were overwhelmed by the long wave of PSG’s second success in the Champions League, as happened a year ago and as was feared it could happen again. One dead, hundreds injured and 780 people arrested across France, of which 457 were held under arrest. A shame whose images have gone around the world, mixing and overlapping with that of the joy of the Paris Saint Germain players after the end of the penalty shootout against Arsenal.
The toll of the night of accidents in Paris and the rest of France was directly traced Laurent NunezFrench Interior Minister, speaking of “an increase in rocket fire against the police”. “We had some gatherings in a festive atmosphere everywhere on the national territory – he said – the situation remained overall under control despite some excesses, regularly quelled by the police”.
The moments of greatest tension and fear occurred immediately after the final whistle in Budapest near the Champs-Elysées and near the PSG stadium, the Parc des Princes, where there was a large screen organized to allow those who had not found a ticket for Hungary to watch the match against Arsenal. A Parisian fan died when he crashed into concrete blocks on an exit road from the Périphérique, the Paris ring road in a stretch not far from the Parc des Princes. “At the moment – said Minister Nunez – there are 219 participants in the celebrations who are injured, 8 of them seriously. The vast majority left home to celebrate and everything went very well. But some individuals, and these are not PSG fans, but they are people who don’t even watch the matches, went out to create accidents and disorder. We are here to prevent them. Our response is very firm”.
The quantity of material seized was also large: 24 rockets and a hundred fireworks. Six cars parked in the area and two businesses, a bakery and a restaurant near Porte de Saint-Cloud, suffered serious damage after being attacked and vandalised. The police station in the 8th arrondissement and a bus shelter were attacked, and a kiosk was set on fire near the Champs-Élysées.
Concern now shifts to the large parade organized by PSG and the local authorities to celebrate the conquest of the Champions League with the open-top bus which will pass through various areas of the central area of the French capital in a constant state of alert.
