French football policing under the spotlight

On Sunday, as France reacted to the fallout from Saturday night's chaotic Champions League final in Paris, one could be forgiven for thinking things couldn't get any worse.

The biggest game in European club football had kicked off 36 minutes late while disastrous organization and security had led to visiting fans being tear-gassed by police and robbed by gangs of local youths as they queued for hours outside the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris.

UEFA had already begun to row back on its original claims the previous evening that fans arriving late at the stadium had been responsible for the issues, as criticism of the French authorities and police began pouring in, particularly from the UK.

And then, on Sunday night, Saint-Etienne were relegated.

After losing a penalty shootout in a playoff against Auxerre to seal a first relegation from Ligue 1 in 22 years, furious fans of Les Verts (The Greens) poured onto the pitch and launched dozens of flares at their own players and coaches, who were rapidly trying to escape down the tunnel.

According to local authorities, 14 police officers and 17 fans were injured, with three taken to hospital. Two Auxerre players were reportedly also lightly injured while, after the game, visiting Auxerre fans were also attacked.

Coming just 24 hours after the chaos of the Champions League final, the scenes at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard capped off not only a calamitous weekend in France, but a disastrous season in general for French football.

"Saint-Denis and Saint-Etienne were different incidents with different causes — but there is a link," says Nicolas Hourcade, a sociologist at the École Centrale de Lyon and specialist in French football fan culture.

"What they have in common is an issue of security surrounding football matches, which has plagued France all season: there aren't enough stewards, they're not sufficiently trained, and they don't know how to manage crowds of supporters."

Disorder

When French fans returned to stadiums last August after almost two years of pandemic-enforced matches behind closed doors, the opening months of the new season were marred by serious disorder from day one.

Olympique Marseille had two away games —  in Nice and Lyon —  suspended and then postponed after Dimitri Payet was twice struck by bottles thrown from the crowd. In Nice in August, he threw the bottle back, resulting in a pitch invasion and mass brawl which saw a Nice fan handed a 12-month suspended jail sentence and a Marseille coach banned for punching a pitch invader.

On September 18, the Derby du Nord (North Derby) descended into chaos when Lens fans crossed the pitch at halftime to confront traveling Lille fans who had launched missiles into the home sections. A few days later, on September 22, 16 Bordeaux fans were injured when their bus was attacked in Montpellier, fans of Marseille and Angers traded blows on the field, while Metz fans stormed the pitch after a late winner against Paris Saint-Germain — all on the same afternoon.

Things calmed down after Christmas but even Saint-Etienne's playoff against Auxerre on Sunday was played with one stand closed after the club's "Green Angels" ultras had celebrated their 30th birthday with a massive firework display against Monaco in April.

"There has certainly been an increased excitement among fans returning to stadiums after the pandemic but it's not always been negative and it's not limited to France," explains Hourcade, adding that, in his opinion, some fan and ultra groups have become more radical.

"There are increasing problems between fan groups and the directors of their clubs, who fans don't think have the best interests of the club at heart," he tells DW. "They're legitimate complaints, and we see them across Europe, but sometimes it gets out of control and explodes as we saw at Saint-Etienne."

'An archaic policing strategy'

For Ronan Evain, director of Football Supporters Europe (FSE) and a fan of French side Nantes, on the other hand, the escalation at Saint-Etienne had more to do with specific local tensions between club and fans, which have been growing for years.

Of course, there were no French clubs involved in the Champions League final in Paris on Saturday, and Evain says those incidents are more closely linked to those in the first half of the season, which he puts down to an "archaic" policing strategy.

"It all starts with the illusion surrounding the nature of traveling football supporters and the assumption that they are hooligans," he tells DW. "For the police on duty in Paris on Saturday, they weren't dealing with the Liverpool supporters of 2022; they were dealing with the Liverpool supporters of 1980. The whole approach is dictated by a perception no longer rooted in reality."

In France, the default response to the perceived threat posed by football fans is usually to simply ban them en masse from traveling to games in the first place. The concept of the "arrêté préfectoral" —  a spontaneous ban imposed by the local police prefectures is a familiar one to French football supporters, who often find out that they are banned from traveling to an away game at short notice.

"Since the start of the season, France has resumed its repressive police approach, imposing collective punishments and blanket bans on away travel," says Evain. "[On Saturday] we saw a retreat into a repressive approach based on force: a visible police presence, police vans everywhere, officers in helmets, a show of strength."

However, it appears to be little more than a show. On the contrary, the French approach of simply issuing collective bans has left its police force uniquely under-prepared and unsuited to dealing with large football crowds.

"This is a country which is incapable of managing 50-100 away fans in the third division, let alone tens of thousands at the Champions League final," says Evain.

Sociologist Hourcade concurs, adding that the whole approach is counter-productive.

"Firstly, [collective punishments] are obviously unfair on fans who have done nothing wrong," he says. "Secondly, it's not effective: you can close a stand for a match, but the problematic fans aren't banned; they'll come back.

"This practice of using collective punishments also explains the approach on Saturday in Paris. The police are unable to distinguish between problematic people and those who are normal and calm. It's a serious problem."

Government response 'reminiscent of Hillsborough'

On Monday, seemingly oblivious to the mounting criticism and evidence, French interior minister Gerald Darminin doubled down on the authorities' version of events and blamed "fraud on an industrial scale," while Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera spoke of "30,000 to 40,000 people without tickets or with fake ones". These claims have been roundly dismissed by journalists who witnessed events firsthand.

"The response is reminiscent of that of the British government after the Hillsborough Disaster [which resulted in the deaths of 97 Liverpool supporters in 1989] – and not just because of the involvement of Liverpool fans," says FSE's Evain. "There has been no attempt to apologize to the supporters, but rather to dehumanize and blame them."

In response to the incidents on Saturday, UEFA has launched an official investigation into what went wrong, which Evain hails as a "step in the right direction."

But he's also critical of European football's governing body, saying: "All the risks of staging a game at the Stade de France were known: the problems with the access routes, the difficulty of providing adequate security, the issues with the local population. But evidently, they have other priorities."

As for France's approach to policing professional football matches, Hourcade would like to see the country look abroad for inspiration.

"[They should] follow the lead of England and Germany and recognize that football is an important political issue which requires a real political approach involving local authorities, police, clubs and fans," he says. "As it stands, France doesn't have a coherent plan to manage football supporters."

Some of those long-suffering French supporters clearly felt vindicated in the wake of Saturday night.

During a women's game between Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon on Sunday, which saw Lyon clinch the title with a 1-0 win, PSG fans unfurled a banner addressed to the police and the local prefectures, reading: "Now the whole world has seen your incompetence."

Edited by: Matt Pearson