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“It’s an incredible thing”: the deleted videos of the Stade de France incidents at the heart of the hearings of the SNCF and the RATP

The Senate is continuing its hearings to shed light on the chaotic evening at the Stade de France. After the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and his counterpart for Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the French Football Federation or the prefect of police Didier Lallement, it was the turn this Tuesday morning of the RATP and the SNCF to be heard at the Luxembourg Palace. And the two carriers were particularly questioned on one point, which was widely debated at the end of last week: the deletion of video surveillance images of the evening on the sidelines of the Champions League final on May 28.

What images are we talking about?

Let’s first resituate the perimeters of each. In Saint-Denis, the RATP is in charge of line 13 of the metro, with a Saint-Denis Porte de Paris stop which serves the Stade de France. On the day of the final, this access to the enclosure was mainly used by Real Madrid supporters. The SNCF takes care, for its part, of the RER D, with a Stade de France-Saint-Denis station, as well as this part of the RER B, whose flow of travelers in the sector arrives at the Plaine Stade station. of France. A last route less used on the day of the match, because the RER B was affected by a strike on May 28.

Both operators have a network of cameras in the area. “They film in our trains and around our perimeter, indicates the general manager of SNCF Transilien, Sylvie Charles. Not what’s outside. The RATP, through its deputy director general in charge of transport and maintenance, Philippe Martin, also indicated that the videos concern the Saint-Denis Porte station in Paris. And that there were no cameras to determine what happened “around the stadium”. On this point, the FFF explained a week ago that the images of the enclosure had been automatically destroyed seven days after the final. But the police headquarters immediately claimed to have its own recordings in the sector.

On Friday, the RATP told Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France that all of its recordings on line 13 that evening had been automatically deleted 72 hours later, for lack of a judicial requisition “for storage reasons”. . If the SNCF, the same day, initially indicated to our newspaper that all of its videos had disappeared within the same period for similar reasons, it quickly backpedaled by affirming in the evening that “the automatic deletion images has been blocked and the images have been retained”.

What images has the SNCF kept?

The carrier developed its remarks in front of all the senators. First of all, some of the videos are definitely lost. This is the case of the recordings on board the RER trains and of a “part which had begun to be erased”, according to Sylvie Charles, at Plaine Saint-Denis. If the recordings of the station where the RER D arrives have been kept, it is because of a “brawl” reported in the Saint-Denis station, with an injured English supporter. “As we had an incident, rail security blocked them,” says the boss of Francilien.

On Wednesday June 1, the SNCF claims to have received a call in the afternoon from “the territorial transport brigade” (Editor’s note: dependent on the police headquarters) asking it to block its images. The same day, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin was heard by the Senate. The SNCF claims to have also been requested Friday, June 10 by justice, the day after the hearing of the FFF where the federation informs of the destruction of the recordings of the Stade de France.

The SNCF also claims to have that “many acts of delinquency” have been reported near its rights-of-way around the Plaine Stade de France. In addition, the report of the interministerial delegate to the Olympic Games and major events, Michel Cadot, mentions “numerous fights and thefts” in this sector at 11:45 p.m. on the evening of the match. These incidents caused “a temporary withdrawal of the Transilien SNCF teams to no longer be exposed to the aggressiveness of certain offenders present in the area”, according to the report.

Sylvie Charles evokes, she, “jets of projectiles” on the ramp, as well as “drunken supporters who jostled the agents”, but “nothing serious”. It also mentions “a strong presence of pickpockets on the docks”. “An extraordinary stadium outing,” she insists. But without knowing if all of these events were filmed, and especially if they are part of the recorded recordings of the RER B.

Why did the RATP remove everything?

“We have had no incidents, so the measure to store the videos has not been taken, underlines Philippe Martin. There was no requisition except Friday (June 10), so here it is…” “We were not requisitioned, there were no objective reasons to keep the images,” continues Jérôme Harnois, director in charge of crisis preparedness, security, compliance and institutional affairs.

However, several Spanish supporters have mentioned thefts on the platforms of line 13. One of them reports to Parisian-Today in France that “many teenagers, women and even grannies have started to complain about inappropriate gestures”, from the outward journey.

“There is something that intrigues me. All the channels in the world were showing images of what had happened, no one in either of your two companies said to themselves: You have to keep the pictures. It’s an incredible thing, launched the senator (PS) of Paris, Marie-Pierre de la Gontrie. The SNCF only keeps them because there was an incident in Saint-Denis. I don’t understand why you were so unsuited to the context. »

“We have more than 50,000 cameras, you have to imagine what that represents in terms of storage, defended Jérôme Harnois. We have more than 7,000 requisitions per year, our deadline is known to all. We did not have the same call (Editor’s note: as the SNCF), otherwise we would have taken the same decision. Conversely, we would also have been criticized for storing images beyond the procedures put in place. »

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