how the Champions League final turned into a political (and diplomatic) crisis

“Welcome to the Champions League.” With this tweet, posted the day after the start of the war in Ukraine, Jean-Michel Blanquer did not imagine for a moment the fiasco that the relocated final of the competition, Saturday May 28, from Saint-Petersburg to Saint-Denis ( Seine-Saint-Denis). Three months after this highly criticized message from the former Minister of Education, the executive is trying to recover from a nightmarish evening, between delay in kick-off, use of tear gas and attacks on supporters at the Stade de France .

The management of the evening by the government, much criticized, has become a real political affair under the battering of the opposition and the United Kingdom. Franceinfo summarizes in six acts the transformation of this prestigious sports evening into a hot topic, less than two weeks before the first round of the legislative elections.

Act 1: during the match, a British MP attacks the organizers

Among the thousands of supporters forced to wait at the gates of the Stade de France on Saturday evening, there is Ian Byrne. This MP for Liverpool, like many Reds fans, has been at the heart of a huge mess around the enclosure since the end of the afternoon. After halftime of the match, the kick-off of which was delayed by 36 minutes, the British parliamentarian evokes on Twitter “one of the worst experiences of (his) life”. “Horrible security and organizational conditions put lives at risk”he blames UEFA, the body that organizes the competition.

Act 2: Darmanin and Oudéa-Castéra target British “supporters”

After the delayed meeting, Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, Minister of Sports, congratulated themselves the same evening on the management of the crisis by the authorities and explicitly attacked the supporters. “Attempts to break in and defraud thousands of England fans have complicated the work of stewards and police but will not tarnish this victory”, assures the Minister of Sports on Twitter. The Minister of the Interior points out the fact that “thousands of British ‘supporters’, without tickets or with counterfeit tickets, forced entry and, at times, assaulted the stewards”.

Act 3: the opposition seizes on this fiasco to charge the government

Real Madrid is barely crowned European champion that opponents of Emmanuel Macron are already denouncing a fiasco in the organization of the event. Quoting Gérald Darmanin’s tweet on the “thousands of UK fans without tickets”Eric Zemmour assures shortly after midnight, Sunday, that “scum jump over the barriers and attack around the Stade de France”.

Sunday morning, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the two main opponents of the Head of State, attack the government, responsible according to them for the image “lamentable” given by France abroad, two years from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The RN candidate for the presidential election castigates “incompetence” of Gérald Darmanin and the prefect of police of Paris, Didier Lallement. The leader of La France insoumise act for his part the“complete failure of police strategy”.

Act 4: British authorities respond to France

The version of the French government, which explains the excesses observed on Saturday by the very large number of counterfeit notes, is increasingly disputed. Anger rumbles across the Channel. Ian Byrne, the British MP present at the Stade de France for the match, wrote Sunday afternoon to Liz Truss, the British Foreign Minister, to request an investigation into all the facts alleged against the organizers and the French authorities. Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson follows suit to ask “an investigation into the shameful scenes” observed in Saint-Denis.

On Sunday, the British Secretary of State for Culture and Sport, Nadine Dorries, asks ‘urge UEFA to launch an official investigation to find out what went wrong and why’. Monday, in the middle of the day, it is the turn of Boris Johnson’s cabinet to say to itself “extremely disappointed” by the treatment meted out to England fans. “They deserve to know what happened”explains the spokesperson for the British Prime Minister, urging UEFA to “to work closely with the French authorities in a full investigation” and publish the findings.

Act 5: the government tries to counterattack

Attacked by the opposition, challenged by the British authorities, the new French government is trying to regain control. The Ministries of Sports and the Interior are organizing a ministerial meeting on Monday at 11 a.m. to “find out the malfunctions” after the incidents. Amélie Oudéa-Castéra believes prior to this meeting that “Liverpool have left their supporters in the wild”. She also cites the figure of “30 to 40,000 people with ‘fake tickets’ or ‘without tickets'”.

After this ministerial meeting, Gérald Darmanin and Amélie Oudéa-Castéra tried to put out the fire during a press conference at midday. “What was found was massive, industrial and organized fraud, counterfeit notes”, accuses the Minister of the Interior. Not less than “70%” of the paper tickets presented for pre-screening were “fake”according to him, and, “once past this pre-filtering, more than 15%” were fake.

Act 6: the Senate gets involved and will hear the two ministers

No respite for the executive. The Senate decides, Monday afternoon, to summon the ministers Amélie Oudéa-Castéra and Gérald Darmanin. The two members of the government will be heard on Wednesday at 4.30 p.m., to “to ensure that all the lessons of this evening are learned quickly to reassure the world of France’s ability to host major events”explain the presidents of the Senate’s law and culture committees.

“The event that occurred on Saturday created enough controversy for Parliament to exercise its right of control”, adds Senator LR du Rhône François-Noël Buffet. The government dreams of only one thing: getting out of this controversy so as not to risk losing points as the legislative elections approach.


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