Incidents at the Stade de France – The prefect Didier Lallement returns to the figure of 30,000 to 40,000 false balls – L’Indépendant

After Gérald Darmanin, the turn of the prefect of police Didier Lallemant to be heard by the Senate about the incidents that occurred at the Stade de France during the Champions League final. Before the Senate, the Paris police chief acknowledged that police management around the Real Madrid-Liverpool Champions League final on May 28 was “obviously a failure”. “It’s obviously a failure because people were pushed around or attacked when we owed them security,” said Didier Lallement, mentioning France’s “shaken image”. “It’s an injury for me,” he added. On these same acts of aggression, he evokes “300 or 400 individuals, perhaps more, were able to enter the surroundings and engage in acts of theft”. 30,000 to 40,000 fake banknotes? On the figure of 30,000 to 40,000 tickets put forward by the Minister of the Interior following the incidents, the prefect of Paris initially said that he “completely assumes” this figure which he himself transmitted to Gérald Darmanin. “It was I who saw it on the ground”. Didier Lallement then backpedaled, acknowledging: “Perhaps I was wrong about the figure of 30 to 40,000, but I never claimed that the figure was a few thousand perfectly fair.” He affirms that these tens of thousands of people with counterfeit tickets were not in front of the gates of the stadium: “It’s obvious, nobody said that”. “The figure did not have a scientific virtue but simply the feedback of information. (…) Perhaps I was wrong in the figure given to the minister, but I never claimed that this figure was perfectly fair”, Didier Lallement, prefect of police #Senate pic.twitter.com/YIhwkv6pyU— Public Sénat (@publicsenat) June 9, 2022 A presence of counterfeit banknotes which was not “envisaged” by the police, recognizes the prefect. The holders of these tickets were in any case not apprehended: “no element in the matter at the criminal level allowed to do so”. Among others, the prefect of police of Paris, also justified the tear gas deployed on often innocent supporters. “We used tear gas, the only way to our police knowledge to push back a crowd, except to charge it. I think it would have been a mistake to charge people. The tear gas worked. I am well aware that people of good faith were gassed, sometimes even families, I’m sorry, but there was no other way.”