It was a night a difficult night in Paris after PSG won their first Champions League trophy, dominating Inter 5-0 in Munich. After the final whistle, celebrations started in Paris but sadly celebrations turned into chaos and two people died and hundreds were arrested. According to the Ministry of the Interior, 491 people were arrested in the capital as fans gathered around the streets, and in particular on the Champs-Elysees avenue, where there were clashes with officers. A total of 559 people were arrested across the country. Officers reported also two deaths, a man hit by a car while riding a scooter in Paris and a 17-year-old stabbed during the celebrations in the southwestern town of Dax, although the prosecutor’s office has declared it’s not clear yet if the episode of violence was related to Champions League celebrations.
AFP journalists also reported police using water cannons to stop people from reaching the Arc de Triomphe.
“Troublemakers on the Champs-Elysees were looking to create incidents and repeatedly came into contact with police by throwing large fireworks and other objects,” police said in a statement. In Grenoble, in southeast France, a car careened into fans, leaving four people injured, two of them in serious conditions, all of them from the same family according to a police report, though the driver handed himself in to the police and he’s currently under arrest.
The majority of PSG fans celebrated peacefully as they gathered around the streets of the capital, but police reported clashes near both Champs-Elysees avenue and close to the PSG’s Parc de Princes stadium, where 48,000 people watched Luis Enrique’s side lifting the trophy for the first time in history.
