French police have detained 780 people involved in violent clashes in Paris and other French cities that erupted on Saturday night after Paris Saint-Germain defeated Arsenal to win the Champions League.
The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said 57 officers were wounded, with most suffering minor injuries, as football fans set off fires and vandalised shops. One small group even tried to storm a Paris police station.
At a news conference on Sunday he said the situation had largely been brought under control. “Most of the celebrations took place peacefully” across the French capital, he said, noting most incidents happened in the Champs Élysées neighbourhood and close to PSG’s Parc des Princes in western Paris, where fans had gathered to watch the match.
Nuñez said incidents took place in about 15 cities in France, describing “one to two” shops vandalised in those other than Paris. He said 780 people were detained in all, with 480 in the Paris area alone. The Paris prosecutors’ office said 277 people had been formally placed in police custody, including 82 minors, for alleged offences.
One serious accident involved a driver losing control of a car that rammed into a restaurant’s terrace, leaving two people wounded including one seriously, Nuñez said. However, planned celebrations for the team’s win on Sunday afternoon at the Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel Tower, would go ahead as scheduled.
