"I sinned by preconceived notions": Darmanin apologizes three years after the Stade de France fiasco

It took three years and a change of ministry for Gérald Darmanin to clear his name. The former Interior Minister, now Minister of Justice, who had previously blamed English fans for the chaotic events that occurred on the sidelines of the Liverpool-Real Madrid Champions League final at the Stade de France, apologized for the first time this Monday, May 5.

"We made the wrong arrangements" for the police supervision of this meeting, he admitted in an interview broadcast on the YouTube channel Legend. "We were expecting a hooligan war, and in fact we had people who came to racketeer. So the sum total of the bullshit [...] means that when I make my first public appearance, I say what I saw and what I was told: 'The English are causing trouble. ' [...] It wasn't true in the literal sense of the word," the Minister of Justice conceded. "It was a failure because I hadn't planned well, and I sinned because of preconceived notions. The culprit was easy," Gérald Darmanin also acknowledged.

The match was notably delayed by 37 minutes as fans struggled to gain access to the stadium after being channeled through congested bottlenecks. Police fired tear gas canisters at thousands of England fans trapped behind metal barriers. They then faced a series of unfair accusations following the chaos.

UEFA, European football's governing body, initially tried to blame late-arriving fans, even though thousands were held outside the stadium for hours. French authorities also claimed that "industrial-scale fraud" involving counterfeit tickets was the cause of the problem . In 2023, the Bobigny prosecutor's office estimated that "at least 5,000" out of 79,000 seats at the Stade de France were potentially involved in ticket fraud that night. This latest accusation by the authorities, deemed false, was very poorly received in the UK.

A Senate inquiry concluded that a poorly designed security system was the cause of the chaos. An independent report then claimed that UEFA bore "primary responsibility" for the failures that nearly turned the match into a "fatal disaster."

Many fans, including children, expressed their trauma after the potentially tragic event. For many, the chaotic scenes recalled the horrific stampede at Hillsborough Stadium in 1989, which resulted in the deaths of 97 fans . At least 80 complaints of robbery and violence were filed by English and Spanish fans after the incident.

In July 2024, the Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, contacted by Liverpool supporters, considered that the use of "tear gas" to "prevent attempts to enter the stadium" was "not absolutely necessary, nor appropriate to the circumstances and endangered those legitimately present to watch the match, who were in the majority."

Regarding the "attacks suffered by supporters around the stadium," the Defender of Rights considered that "the police failed in their mission to protect people and property."

UEFA announced in March 2024 that it had reached an agreement with Liverpool fans, who were demanding compensation for the physical and mental injuries caused by the incidents at the Stade de France. "What I don't know that evening is that the main problem doesn't come from the English fans, [...] but from the delinquents in Seine-Saint-Denis," Gérald Darmanin said on Monday.