Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra called on Monday to put in place a “firmer penal policy” in the face of violence in football from January, while indicating that she did not want to extend the moratorium on fan travel. Put in place after the death of a supporter in Nantes on December 2, “this moratorium probably did not unfold exactly in the way that everyone could have wished, but what is important is that it produced results,” said the minister after a meeting of the National Supporterism Authority (INS) in Paris.
Before the Nantes-Nice match, Maxime, 31, died of two stab wounds during an altercation with a VTC driver whose vehicle he had attacked with other Nantes supporters, because he was transporting Nice fans . Since then, the public authorities have increased travel bans. But the Council of State suspended these decrees almost every time, citing “a serious and manifestly disproportionate attack on fundamental freedoms”. Despite these decisions, the minister considered that it was necessary to send “an extremely strong signal of firmness, (…) a start, an electric shock”. “Even if there is legal damage, I prefer it to human damage,” she said, while declaring that she did not want to “prolong ad vitam aeternam neither this idea of the moratorium nor these battles before the Council of State”, which meets again Monday afternoon concerning orders targeting Ligue 2 and Ligue 1 matches on Tuesday and Wednesday.
With an agenda which remains to be defined in January, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra underlined “the need to have an even firmer criminal policy”, in particular “with judicial bans on stadiums which must be in greater number and probably with firmer more important”. The minister also announced a “first decision”, the signing in January with the Professional Football League (LFP) of a “new agreement which will allow us to once again clarify the role and responsibilities of each (…) on the spatial and (…) temporal plane”. It was “necessary” to return to this tool dating from 1999, “when we see the uncertainties, the lack of clarity which surrounded the elucidation of the issues during OM-OL on October 29”.
That day, the Lyon bus was stoned and ex-coach Fabio Grosso was injured in the face. The match had been postponed. The LFP then decided not to sanction Marseille, arguing that the incidents had occurred on public roads and therefore outside its responsibility.
As for the LFP, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra also asked for “sanctions which could be more dissuasive when we can establish the nature of the breaches on the part of the clubs”. Recalling the steps forward towards supporters in recent months (experiment with standing stands, use of pyrotechnic devices), the minister expects from them “a clear and complete mobilization in the response to be provided for the resumption of the championship at the beginning of January” and called on associations to “condemn violence”.
Other avenues were mentioned: generalization of police officers as visiting supporters, increase in commercial bans on stadiums decided by clubs, strengthening of the role of supporter referents. Seven months before the Paris Olympic Games, the minister also called for an end to the “over-solicitation of law enforcement”, highlighting the figure of a 47% increase in personnel for securing the football matches in two years.