“Wala, we're going to break everything” . The situation was tense, Sunday evening on the Champs-Élysées, after the final whistle. Crowd movements, firecrackers, CRS charges. "In column, guys, in column!" , shouts a CRS to his men who advance in front of him, shortly before the end of the match, and go up the Champs-Élysées to block a perpendicular street, while groups timidly begin to pour in.
As of 10:30 p.m., 274 verbalizations had been issued for failure to wear a mask, in particular in a bar which was evacuated near the Champs-Élysées. A little earlier, the Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, had warned that a “systematic verbalization” would be applied in the event of non-wearing of the mask.
To contain any overflows and try to maintain barrier gestures, at a time when the indicators of the Covid epidemic are on the rise, the Police Prefecture had planned a device worthy of a New Year's Eve: 3,000 police officers, gendarmes and military and 300 firefighters were deployed. The Champs-Élysées and Place de l'Étoile were reserved for pedestrians from 9 p.m. Wearing a mask was compulsory around the artery of the Champs-Élysées and around the Parc des Princes since Sunday morning. The "points of prevention" had been set up and some 20,000 masks were made freely available by the Regional Health Agency Île-de-France.
"Inadmissible overflows"
Around the Parc des Princes, the atmosphere was quite electric. In the middle of the second half, a few dozen people threw projectiles at the police and their vehicles, noted an AFP journalist in the compound. At around 8:30 p.m., the security perimeter melts in front of groups of young people stepping over the barriers. “There aren't enough of us ,” explains a man in yellow. Neither do the CRS ” .
The police had to intervene with tear gas jets to disperse "a hundred people" , announced the Prefecture of Police. Of "unacceptable excesses" tweeted back the Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin.
From 7:30 p.m., the square giving access to the stadium had been sealed off by barriers behind which were stationed CRS buses and security personnel.