Three years after the fiasco of the Stade de France, Darmanin finally apologizes to Liverpool fans

Gérald Darmanin’s late Mea-Culpa. Questioned by the legend podcast (new window) On his biggest failure as Minister of the Interior (2020-2024), the former mayor of Tourcoing immediately thought of an evening: that of May 28, 2022, at the Stade de France, during the final of the Champions League between Liverpool and Real Madrid. That year, the evening turns to fiasco, fans of Reds fear for their lives and find themselves accused by the minister of having caused the overflows by presenting false tickets.

“I am at the Stade de France, the match does not start, the stadium is not full, but I do not see that there is a problem”admits the now Minister of Justice, who just returned from Tourcoing (North). “I go up to the security post. This is the confusion. We see a red crowd on video surveillance images, agglutinated against the gates, with CRS that hold them. First, the analysis we do is that they give up the brothel (sic).”

It’s a mistake on my part, the culprit was easy

Gérald Darmanin

“I learn 20 minutes after there was a problem in the RER”in addition to attempted entry at the Stade de France “With false tickets”continues Gérald Darmanin. “What I do not know is that most of the difficulty does not come from English supporters, but offenders from Seine-Saint-Denis who plunder supporters. However, our security device is not at all planned for this. We were wrong: we expected a war between Hooligans, we had racketeering.”

According to the former boss of Place Beauvau, “l’addition” Problems has led to a fiasco. But at that time, Gérald Darmanin assures that he did not know it. “In my first public outing, I say what I saw: English supporters fuck the brothel”he recalls. “It was not entirely false, there were false tickets and assaults, but it was not true in the literal sense of the term. The first cause was delinquency.”

• Read

  “There are no more safe places”: Gérald Darmanin deplores omnipresent insecurity in France

The fact remains that for the Minister of Justice, it is difficult to immediately make back machine. “I was told that I was lying and that I hid the truth”continues Gérald Darmanin. “It was the day before the legislative elections, everyone was very happy to explain that it was my fault. There were leaflets in my own constituency to say that I was a big liar. You gave time to erase this.”

Today, Gérald Darmanin recognizes “A failure”. “I did not plan well”he admits. “This is an error on my part. I fished by received ideas. The culprit was easy. I apologize to Liverpool supporters.”