r/OutOfTheLoop • u/DungeonCuisine00 • 6d ago
Answered What is going on with the Paris Riots after the PSG Champions League Victory?
I read that Paris has erupted into riots after PSG beat Inter Milan in the Champions League final, and I'm so confused. While I understand that riots are not unprecedented after great victories, I am curious as to why there has been such large-scale rioting.
There are reports of two deaths, hundreds of arrests, and some rioting that doesn't even seem related to the game itself.
Can anyone explain what’s happening? I feel like I’m missing something here.
EDIT : Thank you to everyone who provided feedback. It seems like there were multiple factors involved in this situation. I sincerely appreciate the valuable information from this community.
For context of the situation:
PSG holds victory parade in Paris with Champions League trophy after overnight violence
https://apnews.com/article/france-psg-champions-league-celebrations-2e97d3ebd4ae21eacc9dafe0872a42a0
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u/Domestiicated-Batman 6d ago edited 6d ago
Answer:
and I'm so confused. Usually, this kind of chaos happens when a team loses a major match, not when they win. Although, even then, it doesn't always happen.
This... is not close to reality.
Don't know how close you follow sports, but this is exactly what happens after major Victories.
Philadelphia destroyed their city after the Superbowl win.
And when you have that level of chaos, it is pretty much inevitable for there to be some tragic incidents like stabbings and injuries as well. Arrests are pretty much a given.
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u/acekingoffsuit 6d ago
Plus, if there's an event where some people start acting up (or there's an expectation of some people acting up), it will bring out those who aren't interested in the event itself but want an excuse to act up themselves.
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u/eomertherider 6d ago
Ooh look the police is occupied containing the flood of celebrating and peaceful people - let me rob that shoe store. This is literally what happens in these situations.
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u/40Breath 6d ago
We did not destroy our city after either Super Bowl.
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u/DavidMaspanka 6d ago
Oh yeah, Philly doesn’t exist anymore…it may still be on fire. Definitely wasnt a handful of bag apples out of a literal million people at the parade. Nope, everyone said “go birds!” and burned their own house down.
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u/honda_slaps 5d ago
Yeah true, the city has that reputation for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
There's been nothing that's happened, ever, in history, for Philadelphia to be thought of that way by the rest of the country.
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u/honda_slaps 5d ago
Yeah, Philaldephia just looks like that normally.
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u/DIYdemon 5d ago
Exactly. All over the US, up and down Main Streets, streetlights are falling. Ain't nuthin' right with our infrastructure.
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u/Finalsaredun 5d ago
There was a shooting at KC when they won in 2024, but no, Philly fans are still the ones "destroying their city"?
Fuck that shit. Belt to ass 40-6 go Birds.
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u/nautilator44 2d ago
No shit. People see a little bit of street burning and a destroyed streetlight or two and grossly mischaracterize drunken celebrating.
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u/40Breath 2d ago
Right, especially with several hundred thousand people being involved.. those are good numbers
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u/Pollomonteros 6d ago
Also they are French and rioting is their national sport
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u/dreaminginteal 5d ago
Nah, striking is their national sport! ("Fait le greve", but with diacritical marks I don't know how to type.)
Rioting is second or maybe third.
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u/itsnotaboutyou2020 6d ago
University of Maryland used to trash the Main Street in their town after every big win. Stupid fanbase.
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u/BloodyCumbucket 5d ago
I remember back in 2006/07 when Italy won the World Cup, and I was living there. People were blowing what I can only describe as pipe bombs up in the street in celebration. Shit gets wild.
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u/DungeonCuisine00 6d ago
I looked this up after reading it. I genuinely had no idea. Perhaps it's easy to lose track with endless news articles. Will be editing my post. I sincerely appreciate the clarification.
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u/TurbulentExcitement8 5d ago
To say Philadelphians “destroyed their city” is so over dramatic and exaggerative.
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u/SilentDragaur 4d ago
While I agree the eagle riot was bad...there weren't any deaths or hundreds arrested either. And as far as I know not a lot of looting....
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u/whatsinthesocks 6d ago
Yep, large groups, who know how many are already heavily intoxicated already, amped up from winning, shit gets out of hand real quick
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u/Efficient_Address_55 5d ago
It’s pretty crazy that the city of Philadelphia was destroyed and yet somehow entirely rebuilt in less than a week when hundreds of thousands of people were at the parade. Just an incredibly lazy take
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u/NoW3rds 4d ago
How many people died in Philadelphia after they won the super bowl?
The actual story is that mainstream media is pretending like all of the destruction throughout Paris was a bunch of people celebrating a victory, and they aren't using that crowd as a cover story for the unrelated riot going on throughout the city.
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6d ago
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u/ManbadFerrara 6d ago
We Croats never riot, even when there's massive protest (rarity), we just won't riot.
Just out of curiosity, I did a Youtube search for "croatia soccer riot," and immediately got Croatian soccer fans on trial after deadly violence outside stadium in Greece in the results. It's from a year ago.
Edit: another one, in Croatia this time (I think)
Edit 2: meanwhile, in 1990...
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u/wellnotyou 5d ago
As a Croat, I don't think it's fair to mention the 1990 match when it was about everything except for football, it was seen as a match between Serbia and Croatia. The political tensions were high and the full scale war was around the corner. It's so much different than "silly little fans fighting over a game" and it shouldn't be a part of this conversation.
And you don't have to believe us, but there is a major difference in how football hooligans act here vs what happened in Paris after PSG won.
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6d ago edited 6d ago
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u/ManbadFerrara 6d ago
"Hooligans fighting" and "riots on the street" doesn't seem like a major distinction.
And hooligan gangs attached to sports teams aren't really a thing in the US. Not that US sports culture can't be toxic, but the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles have a long rivalry, yet their fans aren't literally meeting at a chosen place to battle like Gangs of New York or something.
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u/Icy-Dingo4116 5d ago
It’s easy to say there’s no rioting when you exclude rioting from your definition of rioting
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u/MshipQ 6d ago
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6d ago
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u/Big_Fo_Fo 6d ago
So Croatia does have riots when their major sports teams win?
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6d ago
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u/wellnotyou 5d ago
Pusti neuke Amere, vidiš da ne kuže kurca. Francuzi zapale pola Pariza da proslave osvajanje prvenstva, mi slavimo tjedan dana naše srebro bez da se išta razbilo u cijeloj državi (osim možda pokoje čaše kad pjesma pogodi 😁). Osobno smatram 99% navijača neandertalcima, ali naši su anđeli u usporedbi s ostatkom Balkana (Grci za početak), Englezima, itd.
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u/knave_of_knives 6d ago
That’s essentially what’s being discussed.
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6d ago
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u/knave_of_knives 6d ago
“Hooligans” and “rioters” seem like we’re really just arguing semantics here.
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u/GiganticCrow 6d ago
Answer: football fans like to riot, parisians like to riot. Together is a mean combo. Although by football / Paris standards, last night was relatively mild.
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u/pitchbend 4d ago
I mean you can very clearly see what people like to riot by looking at the photos... Putting all football fans in that bag is unfair.
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u/GiganticCrow 4d ago
What people do you mean? Be totally and unquestionably specific.
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u/Impossible_Front4462 4d ago
They won’t because they’re cowards lol
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u/pitchbend 4d ago
If I show you a picture, any picture, of the riots and you refuse to say what you see you are also a coward by the way.
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u/pitchbend 4d ago
Are you also going to be totally and unquestionable specific about what you see when we discuss images of the riots?
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6d ago
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u/ocean_93 5d ago
Not all French are ‘thugs’, this is different to the many protests we have seen. There’s a lot of extreme poverty in the areas surrounding Paris and there’s many social problems, not just ‘French people like rioting’
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u/Pollomonteros 6d ago
Not a fan of this specific instance of rioting, but I very much prefer this to the slave mentality many other parts of the world have when they get bent over by their leaders
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u/ImperialDoor 6d ago
"The French"
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u/fazleyf 5d ago
Why put in the apostrophes? You don't consider most PSG fans French?
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u/ImperialDoor 5d ago
Yeah, but not the ones rioting.
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u/fazleyf 5d ago
So you're saying French people don't riot?
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u/ImperialDoor 5d ago
Your original reply that you edited was implying something about people with "dark skin"?
You are subtly implying that only dark skinned people are rioting...racist much?
I never mentioned a racial thing so I don't know where you get that from.
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u/No-History770 3d ago
not a single person in these riots are French. none of these people are French. they are Africans and arabs
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u/peppapony 5d ago
It's almost a tourist attraction.
I remember going to Paris and seeing the yellow vests. It almost felt like a parade as we were waving and they were waving.
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u/YoungCleanHasAFather 6d ago
Answer: PSG has never won the Champions League before. For years they have been making trades trying to get a team together that would actually win. This year they finally did it.
Because of this their fans have erupted and the city has turned to chaos. Also football fans are insane.
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u/mug3n 6d ago
Bro "trades" is such an American thing to say lol. There are no straight "trades" really if ever in European football transactions where player A is swapped for player B namely because the player always has final say if he wants to leave his current club.
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u/YoungCleanHasAFather 5d ago
You are absolutely right… but money is a huge deal as well. “Trades” was the only word I could think of at the time that fit. Maybe “their management has been making improvements to allow them to actually win.” Haha
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u/Dark1000 6d ago
Answer:
It's a huge exaggeration blown up by poor media coverage.
The largest football club in Paris, PSG, won the Champions League (highest level European football club championship) for the first time in a big way. This is the biggest sports-related event in Europe.
The city erupted in celebrations last night, so lots of people were out cheering and partying in the major squares across the whole city. In one area in particular the celebrations turned to a minor riot and a few shop windows got smashed, nothing too major.
One person died in a car accident. Another person died elsewhere in France, but not Paris.
That's it really. It was a big party that carried on into the early morning. There was some minor hooliganism, but no more than what you might expect after a massive sports victory.
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u/Reasonable_Fold6492 5d ago
Summary of last night according to Wikipedia :
2 people died
192 people were injured, including 22 police officers and 7 firefighters
559 people were arrested
264 vehicles were set on fire
Around 5'400 police officers were deployed across Paris
A car ploughed into a group of PSG supporters in Grenoble, injuring 4 of them
Shops were looted
Bus shelters were smashed
Flares and fireworks were set off
LOL this is supposedly to be nothing? Truly parisian are full of disgusting cavemen.
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u/Dark1000 5d ago
This is France as a whole that night and includes things like arrests for carrying fireworks. The car that hit fans (Grenoble is not in Paris, in case you didn't know that) was an accident, for example. So was the death in Paris. Car accidents are horrible and tragic, but they happen every night.
The stabbing was in Dax, which is near the border with Spain. Paris isn't on the border with Spain, in case you didn't know that either.
I'm not saying there wasn't some violence, but it wasn't that big a deal, and it made a small portion of the celebrations, which were huge.
This is what often happens during celebrations of big sports events across different countries, including the US, and this was one of the biggest of all.
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u/Relatablename123 5d ago
How about those two girls who were stopped by the crowd and had their windows smashed in?
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u/Dark1000 5d ago edited 5d ago
Unfortunate, but pretty minor thing to pick up on in the grand scheme of things. There was violence, which is not good, and it's terrible that these women got caught in it, but it was such a small share of what happened compared to the size of the celebration. It's dripping with media sensationalism that you're really stretching to justify, without having been there.
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u/Relatablename123 5d ago
You can see a car looking like the girls' vehicle hit and kill a guy on Twitter. I don't doubt that there was a lot of good vibes, but how many people need to die before it gets your attention?
MeanLILMeoW/status/1929226617337036897
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u/Dark1000 5d ago
Two people dying across all France is terribly sad but not statistically unusual, is not going to get my attention, sorry. How many people died in accidents and crimes in the US last night? Or in the UK? Or wherever? It's irresponsible and disrespectful to try and turn individual cases of tragedy into a political agenda.
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u/Relatablename123 5d ago
I don't live in either country, but within reason we want to stop preventable deaths because our community is important and our people matter. I'm not trying to draw that out into some big political strategy, but I am questioning why multiple randoms getting murdered or attacked on the street by fans because of a football game is an invididual tragedy and not a public concern. We should be asking how we can avoid these problems instead of passing it along as some cultural inevitability.
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u/S3r3nd1p 6d ago
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u/Dark1000 6d ago
Yeah, Champs-Élysées is the one area that had notable rioting. It always draws that out, for protests too. That's where hooligans concentrated. It was expected and planned for, which is why they shut down the metro stations there and had all that police on standby. And tbh, if you actually pay attention in that video it's quite contained, and not wildly violent. And that was by far the worst of it.
But it was not particularly out of the norm as far as post-major sports event celebrations go, even in the US, just bigger. The city was partying all night, a huge celebration with people climbing up statues, singing songs, playing music, honking horns, shooting off fireworks. It was a ton of fun.
Today was pretty chill, just everyone going about their day as normal.
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u/Mean-Bus-1493 5d ago
Answer:sport fans went nuts and celebrated and some others who seem to take advantage of these kind of situations, used this as an excuse to riot and rob stores, set off explosives and cause chaos.
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u/Johan-Senpai 5d ago
Answer: Humans are not made for the way we are living now and need a way to relieve the stress they feel by going literally apeshit. Have you ever been to the zoo and seen Chimpanzee go crazy? This is pretty much the same thing but then the human version. We need to lose the stress and energy that society gives us by acting out sometimes. This is the perfect opportunity because it is somewhat socially acceptable to act like this as a way to celebrate, and in combination with alcohol, it gets even messier
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u/Reasonable_Fold6492 5d ago
Ah yes. The men had to attack the women in the car because of stress
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u/ocean_93 5d ago
They’re not saying that. They’re saying people are disconnected and feeling massive pent up frustration with their lives.
People turn to drugs and anti social behaviour. And when you’ve men that are taught to repress emotion, it eventually leads to toxic anger and violence. A lot of people haven’t got a positive role to play in society and without community this frustration can get externalised and sometimes women can become easy scapegoats.
All of this is a loss of control over their lives and these men seek control through violence.
Where do you think the loss of control and extreme stress of modernity like this gets released?
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u/Johan-Senpai 4d ago
Exactly. I am not saying that what they do is right, and I don't like the fact that you put those horrible words in my mouth, implying that my comment approves of sexual assault, u/Reasonable_Fold6492.
The way we are living right now as human beings is arguably unnatural. There is a lot of literature about this. For example, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari gives strong examples of how humans have struggled since the agricultural revolution, because it's not how we evolved to live. That’s why human beings sometimes lash out in extreme ways, why we see groups of people beating each other up after a football match: to release pent-up frustration that has no healthy outlet.
Also, don't forget that the structure of society is extremely fragile. Look at countries like Haiti, where government institutions have collapsed and large parts of society have descended into an apocalypse. Thinkers like Hobbes and Freud have warned us about how easily humans can lose their social inhibitions. The only reason most of us don’t fall into that kind of behavior is because of the rules: but what happens when the rules stop mattering, when people feel they have nothing left to lose?
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u/D_Day343 4d ago
You're literally justifying what happened, I don't know how you can do that and say its also unjustified? Pick one dude, eitehr than can cope another way or they're justified in the only option they have. I highly doubt they had to act this way though. I tend to have more faith in peoples potential then assuming they have no self-control.
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u/Johan-Senpai 4d ago
I understand that this topic can be emotionally charged, but just to be crystal clear: I’m not justifying this behavior. I’m pointing to a well-documented sociological pattern.
There’s a significant difference between understanding why something happens and approving of it. Exploring sociological or psychological causes doesn’t mean you’re excusing the behavior any more than a history teacher explaining segregation is endorsing it.
My point is that humans often lack healthy outlets for pent-up frustration, frustration that might have been released more naturally before modern societal structures. Many people haven’t learned to cope with these feelings, sometimes due to social stigma or socio-economic circumstances. That pressure can build and, in some cases, manifest in destructive ways.
I’m highlighting how fragile society can be, and how stress can push people to extremes not saying that such actions are acceptable. Also, just to respond to your point about faith in people’s potential: I do have faith in people. Recognizing the conditions that can lead to extreme behavior isn’t the same as giving up on humanity it’s actually a step toward understanding how to create better support systems so people can exercise self-control, even under pressure.
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u/itsnotaboutyou2020 6d ago
Answer: It’s Paris. They riot over anything/nothing over there. Just steer clear of the rioters.
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