Police Arrest Hundreds After Champions League Riots in France

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 57 police officers were injured on the night of May 30 and in the early hours of May 31 after soccer fans celebrating Paris Saint-Germain’s (PSG’s) second successive victory in the UEFA Champions League final rioted in several French cities.

Nuñez said during a May 31 news conference that 780 people had been detained in Paris and other cities following PSG’s 4–3 penalty win over Arsenal in Budapest, Hungary, after the match ended in a 1–1 stalemate in extra time. The Paris prosecutors’ office stated that 306 people were in police custody, including 81 children younger than 18. It stated that they faced charges of assaulting police officers, theft, vandalism, and public order offenses.

“The situation has been largely brought under control,” Nuñez said. “Most of the celebrations took place peacefully.”

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the victorious team to the Élysée Palace on May 31, but he also condemned the violence, which had echoes of incidents last year when two people were killed, and 200 were injured after PSG beat Inter Milan 5–0.

“I don’t want that we get used to it,” Macron said. “This is not soccer; this is not sport; this is not what we love. We will be uncompromising with those who have been caught. We do not want to see this happen again. It’s over. We’ve had enough. This must end.”

Nuñez said incidents took place in 15 French cities, and 480 of the 780 arrests were in Paris and its suburbs.

In one incident linked to the celebrations, a motorist lost control of his car, and it crashed into the terrace of a Paris restaurant, injuring two people, one seriously, Nuñez said.

He said the police also had to act five times to prevent people from blocking the main ring road around Paris. The Paris police prefecture said shops were vandalized, piles of garbage were set on fire, and a few cars were set ablaze.

There was also a failed attempt to storm a police station in the affluent 8th Arrondissement neighborhood, the police prefecture stated.

In a May 31 post on X, Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said that the vast majority of Parisians celebrated the victory “with joy, unity, and respect.”

“But I cannot remain silent about the violence and damage committed last night in several parts of the capital,” Grégoire said. “It is unacceptable. Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies attacking the shared property of Parisians. I condemn these acts in the strongest possible terms.”

In a separate post on X, Grégoire offered his support to Jeanne d’Hauteserre, the 72-year-old former mayor of the 8th arrondissement, whom he said was “the victim of an intolerable assault on the sidelines of the celebrations for Paris Saint-Germain’s victory.”

D’Hauteserre told Le Parisien newspaper that she was in a taxi stuck in a traffic jam on the Paris ring road after the match when a man wearing a PSG jersey smashed the car’s window, punched her in the eye, and tried to steal her handbag.

Law and order is expected to be a political issue at next year’s presidential election, with the right-wing National Rally pressing for tougher penalties.

“Only in France does a victory of a football club trigger riots,” said Marine Le Pen, former leader of the National Rally.

Bardella Says Celebration ‘Impossible’

Jordan Bardella, who is expected to be the National Rally’s presidential candidate, wrote in a June 1 post on X that France is becoming a country “where life and celebration are impossible.”

“There is no longer any popular event without it degenerating and witnessing predatory behaviors,” he wrote. “The state must take back control of its security and immigration policy.”

Arsenal had taken the lead in the match in the sixth minute, through German striker Kai Havertz, but PSG equalized in the second half with a penalty by Ousmane Dembélé, and neither side was able to break the deadlock in extra time.

When Arsenal’s Brazilian defender Gabriel Magalhães missed a penalty in the shootout, PSG’s players and supporters celebrated wildly.

“It’s incredible,” PSG captain Marquinhos said. “From the very first day of this season, the coach said it’s hard to win, and winning twice is even more difficult. So we all had to get back to work. That was the mentality.”

The French team is only the second club to retain the Champions League title, after Real Madrid, which won it three times in a row between 2016 and 2018.

Hundreds of thousands of Arsenal supporters packed the streets of Islington in north London on May 31 to celebrate the club’s first English Premier League title for 22 years, and the Metropolitan Police said there were 16 arrests, as of 9 p.m. local time on May 31, including six for assaulting police officers.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.