France ‘learned lessons’ from incidents at Stade de France, says Oudéa-Castera

Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera assured Courchevel on Sunday that France had “learned all the lessons” from the incidents at the Stade de France during the 2022 Champions League final. UEFA but also the reaction of the French security forces. “We will deliver major international sporting events,” promised the minister before the 2023 Rugby World Cup and the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

“We will deliver major international sporting events”

“We have shown that we are at work to learn absolutely all the lessons from all of this, on flow management, on the deployment of security forces, the mobilization of private security agencies, crime prevention plans” , said Amélie Oudéa-Castera in the mixed zone of the Alpine Skiing World Championships, which ended on Sunday in Courchevel with the men’s slalom.

“We are very hard at work with Gérald Darmanin on all these issues, both for the Rugby World Cup and the Olympic and Paralympic Games (…) we have learned all the lessons and we will deliver major international sporting events”, insisted the minister. Earlier this week, an independent report pointed to the responsibility of UEFA, the French Football Federation (FFF) and the authorities in the security “disaster” of the 2022 Champions League final Liverpool-Real Madrid played at the Stade of France.

The painful precedent of the Champions League final

Endless waiting, supporters and families sprayed with tear gas or victims of theft… The law enforcement system during this Champions League final gave rise to scenes of chaos in Saint-Denis on May 28, 2022. , causing a lively controversy in France and England.

The report’s experts, led by Portugal’s former education, youth and sports minister, Tiago Brandao Rodrigues, said they were “flabbergasted” that the match policing scheme could have been included. by the image of Liverpool supporters assimilated to hooligans, an “inexplicable misconception”.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had initially blamed British supporters for the many falsified tickets according to him, before the then Paris police chief Didier Lallement admitted to having “maybe mistaken” about their number , acknowledging a “failure”.