Three years after the incidents occurred in the Champions 2022 League final at the Stade de France, the current Minister of Justice returns to this controversial episode. He was Minister of the Interior at the time.
Three years after the chaos of the Stade de France, Gérald Darmanin finally changes his tone. Invited to the YouTube channel “Legend”, the Minister of the Interior returned to the final of the Champions League of May 2022, which had turned to international scandal. Indeed, the match between Liverpool and Real Madrid had started late, in a tense atmosphere, marked by overflows near the stadium.
Gérald Darmanin had quickly pointed out the English supporters, wrongly accused of being responsible for the incidents. A version of the facts widely called into question since. For the first time, the Minister recognizes his wrongs and apologizes. A late, but unprecedented reversal, after months of silence and controversy.
When asked what his greatest failure is, the Minister of Justice immediately quotes the final at the Stade de France, the evening of the match between Real Madrid and Liverpool. Passionate about football, a fervent supporter of Valenciennes and former referee, he says he is talking about a universe he knows well. “You should know that it is very hard to organize football matches, this is the place where there are the most problems. I learned that the haunt of an interior minister is the football matches. (…) France should not organize this final (indeed, it was initially to take place in Saint Petersburg, before being relocated to Saint-Denis after the start of the war between Ukraine and Russia) Was not going very well, because it is necessary to organize this kind of competition, “he says.
“I may have been a bit pretentious”
“At the time, I may have been a little asleep on my achievements, I hadn’t said to myself:” Here, it can be a problem “. The truth is that in life, there are problems every day. There, I was perhaps a little pretentious, accustomed … (…) I arrive at the stadium by the parking lot. The prefect of police was not there. Although it is a subject, the stadium is not full. crowd, “says Gérald Darmanin.
According to him, “it is Liverpool, a huge club but also English hooliganism. The analysis that we do at first is:” They fuck the brothel “. This is what I learn in the security post, this is what the prefect of police who have since joined, that is what the images show. We also catch guys with false tickets because at the time it was female tickets. blocked the entrance.
He evokes a series of errors: the RER’s breakdown which concentrated Liverpool supporters to a single entry, the false tickets that disturbed filtering, and poorly controlled delinquency. According to him, it was this chain of dysfunctions that led to his first public speech, in which he accused English supporters. A partial version, he admits today, which was not completely false, but which, out of its context, was perceived as a lie. He believes that this declaration fed the idea that he sought to mask the responsibility of certain young people involved in the attacks. The media account then turned against him: the English victims, the guilty authorities. Even if he recalls that no dead or seriously injured is to be deplored and that the situation could have been much worse, he notes that it does not matter to the eyes of the public, for whom the word “fiasco” has imposed itself. The political context amplified criticism: on the eve of the legislative elections, some opponents did not hesitate to attack it frontally, going so far as to distribute leaflets in his constituency accusing him of having lied.
“It’s a failure”
Finally, the minister apologizes to Liverpool supporters. “You take time to erase this. It is a failure because I had not planned well, it is an error on my part, I had not verified well what was going on. I sinned by received idea. The culprit was easy and I apologize to the supporters of Liverpool. They were right to take it bad. It was a mistake and a failure,” he admits.