Irish Examiner view: Ineptitude of police a concern

Champions League recriminations

Police watch the crowd during the Uefa Champions League final at the Stade de France, Paris. The footage of the utter chaos outside the Stade de France has already been destroyed. Picture: Nick Potts/PA

One of the many novels by the prolific French thriller writer Georges Simenon was called Maigret Loses His Temper.

What he would have made of the ineptitude of the police actions on the night of the Champions League final in Paris, and the subsequent investigation which is meant to be taking place into what went so badly wrong, doesn’t bear thinking about.

It is a staple plot device these days that crucial evidence can be found on mobile phones/laptops/social media/conversations, recorded illicitly or otherwise, automatic number plate recognition and, the universal fallback, CCTV.

We learn, malhereusement, that the footage of the utter chaos outside the Stade de France 16 days ago has already been destroyed after an apparent failure by officials to request that there should be retention of originals and copies provided to the investigating authorities.

Amelie Oudea-Castera, France’s sports minister, and Gerald Darmanin, the interior minister, have both blamed ticketless fans or supporters with forgeries trying to get in.

Many of those who attended say they were locked out, tear-gassed by police, and later robbed and assaulted by local gangs as they made their way back to coaches and trains after the match. 

This version of events is provided by followers of both Liverpool and Real Madrid.

“The images are available for seven days, they are then automatically destroyed,” said Erwan Le Prevost, director of institutional relations at the French Football Federation, the game’s governing body. “We should have had a requisition to provide them to the different populations [organisations]. The images are extremely violent.”

This is une catastrophe, as the French like to say.

In one of the Simenon stories, Madame Maigret asks her husband why he is so querulous about something he has been told.

“What is it? Don’t you trust him?” she says.

“Of course not,” replies Chief Inspector Maigret, “he’s a politician.”