Paris prepares hero's welcome for PSG Champions League winners under heavy security
Paris prepared a hero's welcome for Paris Saint-Germain players who won their second consecutive Champions League title with celebrations planned in the capital under heavy security after a night of revelry marred by unrest.
Paris Saint-Germain beat Arsenal on Saturday night in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out after a 1-1 draw following extra-time.
Thousands of people celebrated across France into the night but the parties were blighted by incidents of clashes with police, burglary, vandalism, a deadly road accident and hundreds of arrests, authorities said.
On Sunday morning municipal workers were busy cleaning streets strewn with debris from broken glass, damaged bus shelters, trash cans and vehicles set on fire and bicycles overturned.
Authorities made security assurances on Sunday before a planned parade including the players on the Champs-de-Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower that was expected to draw tens of thousands of people.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez promised "a strong law enforcement response" during the players' return celebrations and fines for "obstructing traffic" in the event of any intrusion onto the Paris ring road.
Paris authorities said nearly 6,000 police and gendarmes have been deployed for security during the celebrations, which would also see the PSG team received at the Elysee Palace by President Emmanuel Macron around 6 pm (1600 GMT) before being celebrated by their supporters at their Parc de Princes stadium.
- Arrests -
Nunez said in a press briefing earlier Sunday that 780 people were arrested across the country during the overnight celebrations.
He highlighted an increased use of fireworks directed at law enforcement and said 57 security forces were injured and that there had been "219 participants injured in France, including eight seriously".
The Paris public prosecutor's office announced the death of a young man in his twenties after he crashed head-on into concrete blocks on a Paris ring road exit ramp on his motocross bike.
A group of supporters had stormed the ring road, bringing traffic to a halt for a time and letting off flares, an AFP photographer said.
Another young man was seriously injured in a knife attack in Paris allegedly over a robbery, the prosecutor's office added.
Nunez said thefts and lootings had taken place in around fifteen cities across the country and incidents of violence were recorded in 71 municipalities.
- 'Zero gatherings' -
The district mayor of Paris's 8th arrondissement -- home to the famed Champs-Elysees where 20,000 people converged after PSG's victory -- called for "zero gatherings" on the iconic avenue as the only way to avoid further violence.
On Saturday night, the "Champs-Elysees avenue and its surroundings ceased to be a place of celebration and became an arena of urban guerrilla warfare", the town hall said in a statement.
Nunez dismissed the idea saying it would "tie up almost half of the security deployment".
The scenes angered the French far right, with three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen writing on X that "only in France does a football club's victory spark riots".
M.A.Walters--TNT
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