Clashes broke out between PSV Eindhoven supporters and police on Tuesday in Lens before the Champions League match between the two clubs, noted an AFP journalist.
A little more than two hours before the start of this match counting for the third day of C1, the first altercations occurred when more than 200 supporters of the Dutch club began to move around the city center.
Incidents broke out between police and Dutch ultras, with the police using tear gas to disperse very mobile supporters in the face of projectiles and smoke bombs.
Escorted from Place du Cantin, where a “fanzone” is organized on the evenings of Champions League matches in Lens, they left the police procession by taking rue Victor Hugo.
Boulevard Émile-Basly, the police then dispersed the ultras using tear gas for the first time. Then it was near the stadium that clashes occurred.
The hooligans were escorted by police officers mounted on horses, motorized brigades and police officers in civilian clothes.
They were accompanied by the CRS until their entry into the stadium to the boos of the Lensois supporters.
In a decree dated October 18, the prefecture had anticipated the presence in Lens of “nearly 2,000 Dutch supporters including around 500 hooligans”.
The Pas-de-Calais police announced on crowd movement”.
Dutch football is regularly faced with problems of violence between fans: at the end of September, the championship clash between Ajax and Feyenoord was definitively stopped after just under an hour of play in Amsterdam due to smoke bombs being thrown at the pitch, before incidents occur outside the stadium.