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French police arrest 780 after violent clashes as PSG fans
celebrate Champions League win
Interior
minister says 57 officers injured as rioters set fires and vandalise shops in
about 15 cities
Nadeem
Badshah
Sun 31
May 2026 17.31 BST
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.
Police
also intervened five times overnight to prevent people from blocking traffic on
the main ring road around Paris, he said.
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. Most were for assaulting police
officers while other allegations included theft, vandalism and disturbing
public order.
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,
Nuñez said planned celebrations for the team’s win on Sunday afternoon at the
Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel Tower, would go ahead as scheduled. The PSG team
will then be hosted by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, at the Élysée
Palace.
Footage
aired on the news channel BFM showed brief skirmishes around PSG’s Parc des
Princes in western Paris, where more than 40,000 people watched the club win
its second consecutive title on penalties at the Puskas Arena in Budapest on
giant screens.
By 11pm
(10pm UK time), police had already made more than 130 arrests, Paris police
said.
Some PSG
fans aimed fireworks at police officers, who responded with teargas during the
celebrations, according to reports in France, while some were seen wearing
T-shirts emblazoned with “FU*K ARSENAL 2026” as they stood next to burning Lime
bikes on the city’s streets.
Smoke
rose from several areas during the clashes. Police were seen sprinting after
groups of fans with riot gear and stamping out flares discarded on the road.
France
had deployed 22,000 police to uphold order in the capital. Last year, two
people died and close to 200 were injured after PSG won the Champions League
for the first time by beating Inter.
The
Champs-Élysées, which authorities had partly cordoned off, was filling with
mostly peaceful PSG fans, TV footage showed. Police estimated the crowd size at
20,000. Some supporters let off fireworks and lit flares.
The Paris
police prefecture said smaller groups caused disturbances in various locations,
with some vandalising shops and setting fires. Cars were also set ablaze. Those
who attempted to storm a police station in the upmarket 8th arrondissement
neighbourhood were dispersed, police said.
Associated
Press and Reuters contributed to this report
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