“A failure” and numbers not “perfectly correct”. The Paris police chief, Didier Lallement, made amends, Thursday, June 9, during his hearing before the Senate to explain the incidents at the Stade de France on May 28 during the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool, charged by the authorities to England fans without valid tickets.
The prefect was not the only one to be heard by the senators of the law commission. Franceinfo summarizes what to remember from this day.
The prefect of police recognizes a “failure”
“It’s obviously a failure”conceded Didier Lallement, mentioning the people “pushed or assaulted” and “shaken image” from France. “It’s a wound for me”, he added. The hearing of the prefect comes after that, on June 1, of the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. The latter had maintained his much-criticized version, reaffirming that “35,000” supporters with counterfeit tickets or without tickets had come to the Stade de France and were allegedly “root evil” the cause of the incidents.
“I assume completely” this digit “which I gave to the minister”declared Didier Lallement before the Senate Law Commission, while acknowledging that he had “maybe deceived”. “I never claimed he was perfectly fair”, he added, while maintaining that there were too many people compared to the capacity of the stadium (79,000 seats). In particular, he refuted having said that these supporters were all “in front of the stadium gates”while several videos and testimonies showed that there was not a large number of supporters around the Stade de France after the start of the match.
Regarding the use of tear gas on the supporters, it was “the only police means to push back a crowd except to charge it”which would have been a “serious error”said the prefect of police, who said to himself “sorry” for “people of good faith”. “Decisions Made” made it possible to preserve “the physical integrity of people and the holding of the match”nevertheless welcomed Didier Lallement, recalling that the RER B strike had caused a massive postponement of supporters at the checkpoints at the exit of the RER D.
CCTV tapes were not retained.
The senators also heard Thursday afternoon Erwan Le Prévost, director of institutional affairs for the French Football Federation (FFF). He pointed to the lack of information from the RATP. “If we had had real-time information on the diversion of RER B flows [en partie en grève] towards the RER D, we could have redesigned our system at the start of the afternoon. The prefecture did not have the information either.added Erwan Le Prévost.
The hearing of the FFF above all made it possible to learn that the CCTV images around the stadium were not kept. “It’s the law”told AFP the chairman of the culture committee, Laurent Lafon. “We are surprised, the prefect took legal action very quickly, there was plenty of time to take [ces images]we have to understand what happened”.
The police headquarters clarified Thursday evening that there is still images from the video protection plan of the police headquarters. These are “in his possession” and “are obviously always at the disposal of justice, within the framework of requisitions drawn up in a criminal investigation”. “Let’s not confuse images of the police with images of a private operator”she says.
The mayor of Liverpool denounces “the very heavy hand of the police”
Also auditioned at the end of the day, the mayor of the metropolis of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram. He lambasted AFP “the lack of organization and the very heavy hand of the police, and of course the way the authorities are trying to shift the blame onto a scapegoat, the Liverpool supporters, for their incompetence”. Remarks that he repeated by videoconference in front of the senators.