PSG fans celebrate at Parc des Princes stadium in Paris on Saturday after the club's UEFA Champions League final victory. The celebrations turned violent across France, leading to 780 arrests. [AFP]
PSG fans celebrate at Parc des Princes stadium in Paris on Saturday after the club's UEFA Champions League final victory. The celebrations turned violent across France, leading to 780 arrests. [AFP]

Celebrations over Paris Saint-Germain's UEFA Champions League title turned violent Saturday, as fans set fires, looted stores and attacked people across France, leaving hundreds in custody.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez held a press conference Saturday and announced that 780 people had been arrested nationwide — including in Paris and the surrounding metropolitan area — in connection with the unrest that followed PSG's victory. Of those, 592 were arrested in Paris and nearby areas, and 457 people were held in custody across the country.

France saw similar violence last year when PSG also won the Champions League. Nunez said arrests had risen 32 percent compared to last year, when PSG claimed its first Champions League title and 592 people were detained nationwide, including 491 in Paris.

The French government had deployed 22,000 police officers across the country ahead of the final and restricted tram, metro and bus services in Paris in anticipation of potential unrest. Despite those measures, 20,000 people gathered on the Champs-Élysées after PSG's victory was confirmed Friday, and some in the crowd damaged shops and set vehicles on fire. According to AFP, fans near PSG's home stadium hurled fireworks at police, who responded with tear gas as the situation escalated.

Nunez said 57 police officers and gendarmes and 219 civilians were injured in the violence. He nonetheless maintained that the situation across France had been "broadly under control," adding that five attempts to block the Paris ring road overnight had all been stopped by police.

The violence drew immediate condemnation from France's right wing. Marine Le Pen, a lawmaker with the far-right National Rally party, posted on X, formerly Twitter, that "France is the only country where a football team's victory triggers a riot, and where everyone feels they must stay locked inside their homes to avoid being caught up in violence on a night of celebration." Catherine Lécuyer, the Republican district mayor of Paris's 8th arrondissement, which covers the Champs-Élysées, issued a statement calling on the government to "acknowledge its inability to control such crowds and ban these gatherings before a fatal tragedy occurs on our streets."

President Emmanuel Macron, who hosted PSG players at a reception at the Élysée Palace on Saturday, congratulated the club as "a source of immense pride for the entire nation" but sharply condemned the violence that had erupted across the country. "Last night, in Paris and other cities, unacceptable violence went on all night long. This is not football, this is not sport, and this is not what we love," he said. "I don't want to see these scenes anymore. I've had enough."


kate01@heraldcorp.com