At least 21 people have been arrested at the final of the men’s French Cup soccer tournament, the scene of protests against French President Emmanuel Macron and the raising of the retirement age called for this Saturday to coincide with the presence of the president at the Stade de France in Paris.
The authorities have reported these arrests motivated by deliberate violence, theft and protar smoke bombs, according to the French television BFMTV.
Macron was present at the match between the teams of Toulouse and Nantes and greeted the players as usual, although he did so in the corridors of the stadium and not on the field, as has happened other times, to avoid controversy.
The final has been chosen by the unions to ask the attendees to show a symbolic red card to Macron for the law that involves raising the retirement age from 82 to 84 years. The authorities announced that access to the state with red cards distributed by the inter-union and including the slogan »No to retirement at 64» would be forbidden.
The security guards have seized the cards despite the decision of the Paris Administrative Court to suspend the ban on access with the cards.
However, several French media have stated that there were red cards present in the state despite the controls and that they were shown at the 49th minute, in reference to article 49.3 used by the Government to facilitate the approval of the pension reform.
»The president sends his prefects to chase whistles. He puts grids with pikes in the stadiums. He greets players on the sly. All that to hide the obvious: his clique is hated,» opposition MP François Ruffin noted on Twitter. »More than ever, they are pitiful,» he reiterated.
»Either she lied, or she does not control anything. In both cases, it is serious,» said for his part the coordinator of La France Insoumise, Manuel Bompard, in response to Saturday’s statements by the prefect of the police, Laurent Nunez, who said that people would not be prevented from entering the stadium with a red card.
Some 3,000 police and gendarmes and 1,400 security guards have been mobilized to ensure security to try to avoid a fiasco like the 2022 Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid.
The Prefecture of Police has set up a »protection perimeter» around the Stade de France with »filtering devices and controls provided by the organizers, in particular to prevent the introduction of any dangerous objects or objects prohibited by the regulations of the French Football Federation».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
