Big occasions attract troublemakers
Henry Samuel is The Telegraph’s Paris correspondent and has lived in the French capital for almost three decades. Arguing there were “many people to blame” for what culminated in the weekend’s rioting, he said: “It’s no secret that French policing tactics have been questioned not just by rights groups but by international rights groups. The handling of the Liverpool game, but not just football. The way they handled yellow-vests protests and the number of people who lost an eye or half their face because they had stunning ammo fired straight at them, is unbelievable, and it just wouldn’t wash in any other country in Europe.”
Pointing out “France has always had a history of revolting and having mass demonstrations”, he added: “The French police have got a lot of issues. They’re not very good at root-and-branch reform and really saying, ‘How can we improve?’
“But, on the other side, they’ve got an incredibly tough job. They’ve had to deal with a hell of a lot of stuff, whether it be riots over the last few years, terrorism, demonstrations, and then football matches. So, you can see it from their point of view.”
According to Samuel, PSG’s recent successes have also tended to attract those who live in what are called banlieues – suburbs often populated by low-income households and immigrant communities – into city centres. “I don’t really know who the troublemakers were and what their profiles were,” he said.
“Whether this has got to do with first or second-generation immigrants is hard to say. There’s certainly, in France, big banlieues, in every single big city where there’s a lot of deprived suburbs and a lot of unemployment. And when there’s a big occasion, in particular, a big football match, they all do come to the centre. They all think it’s great fun and big revelling. And then it can get out of hand. They can get overly feisty.”
One of the most notable features of Arsenal’s Premier League title celebrations was how it appeared to attract fans to north London from all walks of life, none of whom engaged in the kind of rioting and looting that plagued Paris. Indeed, there were only 24 arrests during Sunday’s bus parade attended by an estimated 750,000 people, albeit 10 were accused of assaulting police officers. For all that Mikel Arteta’s men could learn from PSG on the field after their latest defeat by Luis Enrique’s side, there appears plenty that those in France could learn from England off it.