Two killed, 559 arrested in PSG’s Champions League victory celebration

PSG players celebrating

Two people died and hundreds were arrested in France overnight as football fans celebrated Paris Saint-Germain’s stunning Champions League final victory, the interior ministry said on Sunday.

The epicentre of the euphoria was in Paris, which was a theatre of car horns, cheers, singing in the street, and fireworks throughout the night following PSG’s 5-0 triumph over Inter Milan in Munich.

The ministry said 491 people were arrested in the capital when crowds converged on the Champs-Élysées avenue and clashes broke out with officers.

Across France as a whole, including Paris, a total of 559 people were arrested, it added.

The two deaths occurred as the celebrations took place.

A man riding a motor scooter in Paris died after being hit by a car in the city’s southern 15th arrondissement, located just a couple of kilometres (1.3 miles) away from the Champs-Élysées.

In the southwestern town of Dax, a 17-year-old boy was fatally stabbed at a gathering feting the PSG victory, prosecutors said.

His death occurred shortly after the match and “during the celebrations,” but the prosecutor’s office said it did not know whether it was related to the Champions League final. It added that the perpetrator was “on the run.”

The PSG team was to hold a victory parade on the Champs-Élysées on Sunday, with tens of thousands of supporters expected to gather to catch a glimpse of their returning heroes.

Overnight, though, AFP journalists saw police on the famed thoroughfare using a water cannon to stop a crowd reaching the Arc de Triomphe that sits at the top of the Champs-Élysées.

“Troublemakers on the Champs-Élysées were looking to create incidents and repeatedly came into contact with police by throwing large fireworks and other objects,” police said in a statement.