Celebrations across France after Paris Saint-Germain’s penalty-shootout win over Arsenal in Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final turned violent overnight, with 219 people injured — eight seriously — and 780 arrested, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.
Thousands of police officers were deployed to curb unrest that disrupted bus, train and metro services in Paris. Fifty-seven officers were among the injured. More than 450 of those detained were taken into custody, the Paris prosecutor’s office said, citing offences ranging from attacks on officers and property to theft and illegal possession of weapons. Paris police alone made 480 arrests, including 82 minors.
A 24-year-old man was found dead near Porte Maillot on the Paris ring road, which rioters had tried to block overnight; witnesses said he crashed his motorcycle into concrete blocks. A teenager was in critical condition following a separate brawl elsewhere in the city, with no confirmed link to the football violence.
Footage from the Champs-Élysées, swarmed by fans shortly after the win, showed flares being set off, electric bikes burning on roads and at least one shopfront smashed. Police fired tear gas to disperse crowds in the city centre.
Some 6,000 officers were mobilised for Sunday’s victory parade at the Eiffel Tower site, where PSG players were due to tour the Champ-de-Mars and attend a reception hosted by President Emmanuel Macron. “We are a great country for maintaining public order. We allow freedom of assembly, but not excesses,” Nuñez said, pledging a “very firm” response.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen wrote on X: “Only in France does a football club’s victory spark riots.” Similar violence followed PSG’s Champions League win last year, when celebrations also turned deadly.
Source: Ada Derana (citing BBC), May 31, 2026.
