Champions League: Under-fire French minister defends policing

The Interior Minister of France defended how police handled the fans in Paris.

The event could have been handled better, but enough police were at the game.

He said that the English club's fans posed the only problems of the two sets of supporters.

Heavy-handed policing, chaos and overcrowding were described by fans at the showpiece game.

The French authorities blamed ticket fraud and accused the football club of failing to control their fans.

There were long lines of fans waiting outside the stadium in Paris for the match to start.

French police used tear gas and pepper spray.

Mr Darmanin told the Senate committee that French police would be sent to the UK and Spain next week to help citizens who thought they were victims of crime.

The negative image of the match is a wound to our national pride and it is obvious that things could have been better organised. Did we avoid the worst? Yes. Is there more we could have planned? No doubt.

He apologized for the disproportionate use of tear gas, saying that two cases had been referred to France's police watchdog. He said tear gas prevented crowd crush.

The interior minister has faced criticism over how police handled the final. A spokeswoman said he wanted the light to shine on what really happened.

The president is angry with Mr Darmanin, according to French media. The president found the events outside the Stade de France to beshameful and unworthy of France, according to the satirical weekly Le Canard Encha.

Uefa commissioned an independent report into what happened at the final.

The chairman of the club complained that the final should be one of the best in the world, but it turned into one of the worst security collapses in recent memory.

Many fans said they arrived at the stadium hours before the game but were not allowed into the ground.

Girls and young women were groped and mobile phones were stolen when supporters were targeted by local gangs. Dozens of people were arrested and six people appeared in court.

Footballing sources told Agence France-Presse that 2,800 fake tickets were detected at the stadium gates, while the French Football Federation alleged that some 35,000 people had shown up with fake tickets or with no tickets at all.

The main problem was not fake tickets or ticketless supporters, but more police, according to a spokesman for France's independent police commissioner.