The meeting between Nantes and Toulouse will be held on Saturday evening under an important security device. The Paris administrative court, seized in summary proceedings, found wrong on Saturday the prefect of police who wanted to ban a union rally near the Stade de France for the final of the French football cup, which Emmanuel Macron must attend.
The evening promises to be hectic in Saint-Denis. If 78,000 spectators are expected at the Stade de France, Saturday April 29 at 9 p.m., for an unexpected poster in the Coupe de France final between the defending champion, Nantes, and the promoted Toulouse, the extra-sporting context will also be at the center of the media attention.
Almost a year after the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool in the same stadium which had turned into a security fiasco, the confirmed arrival of Emmanuel Macron is stirring up social protest movements – even if the head of the State did not plan, a priori, to go down on the lawn to greet the two teams, as is sometimes the custom.
The French president will also not hand over the Cup to the winner from the lawn, as has been the practice for three years and the Covid-19 crisis. The prefect of police, Laurent Nuñez, decided that the trophy to the winner would be given in the gallery because “it prevents the invasion” of the lawn.
“If I had not made this decision, I would probably have been called irresponsible,” said the prefect on Saturday on BFMTV, pointing to the “degradations” committed during the semi-final between Nantes and Lyon.
“The inter-union 1, Emmanuel Macron 0”
For their part, the trade unions have begun to distribute red cards and whistles to spectators at the Stade de France to show their rejection of the pension reform and their dissatisfaction with the head of state.
The gathering, banned on Friday by the Paris police headquarters, was finally authorized on Saturday afternoon by the courts. The administrative court of Paris thus suspended the decree taken by Laurent Nuñez.
The demonstrators having announced a “simple distribution of leaflets against the pension reform”, the prefect of police did not provide “sufficient elements concerning the risks of disturbances to public order or specific difficulties in his missions of maintenance order,” said the court, in its decision consulted by AFP.
The unions and the League of Human Rights (LDH), which had taken legal action, are therefore “founded in maintaining that the prefect of police has carried out a serious and manifestly illegal attack on the freedom to demonstrate”, added the court.
“Intersyndicale 1, Emmanuel Macron 0”, commented in a press release the applicants, who see in this decision, made just hours before the kick-off of the match, “a victory for the respect of freedoms”.
“The trade unions will thus be able to act within the framework of their freedom of expression and go to meet the public of the Stade de France, to distribute their material”, continues the press release.
Thousands of police and gendarmes mobilized
For its part, the National Association of Supporters (ANS) announced on Friday that it had seized the administrative court to request “the removal of the grids at the bottom of the stands”, pointing to a “danger” with this device.
Some 3,000 police and gendarmes will be mobilized on Saturday near the Ile-de-France enclosure. A device “50% more important”, according to the entourage of the Minister of the Interior, than that mobilized on May 28, 2022 for the Champions League final, the last meeting between clubs disputed in this stadium located north of Paris.
The actors of the meeting, they struggle to hide this social context, especially since the groups of ultra supporters of the two teams maintain tense relations.
“I think we can’t ignore it because it will be very present, but we will have to stay connected to what we have to do on the pitch and on our performance,” Toulouse coach Philippe Montanier explained on Friday. .
“I just have to hope that everything goes well,” added his Nantes counterpart, Antoine Kombouaré. “Football lovers come to see a great match.”
Historic meeting
The atmosphere promises to be noisy in the stands for this historic meeting: Nantes won the Cup only four times, and Toulouse only once, in 1957, in the red and white jersey of a club that disappeared in 1967, then recreated from scratch in 1970.
In addition to a prestigious trophy, a victory during this 106e edition would offer them a ticket for the Europa League next season, even if that would undoubtedly raise some questions in the event of Toulouse’s success, because the TFC has the same shareholder as AC Milan. However, two clubs under the same banner cannot play the same continental competition.
For Nantes, defending champion, whose maintenance is not assured in the Championship (16e), this final looks like an oasis in the desert: if he misses this trophy and then suffers relegation to L2, he will have lost everything.
“A won final will give us the energy and the strength to go for maintenance”, tempered Kombouaré, craftsman of the coronation surprise of 2022.
The track record can reassure the coach: apart from the ogre Paris SG, winner of six of the last eight editions, the last team to manage to keep its trophy is called FC Nantes. It was in 2000, 23 years ago.
With AFP
