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FOOTBALL

How France will tackle spike in football hooliganism

Football matches in France will be called off definitively if a player or official is injured by a projectile thrown from the stands, the government has said.

Marseille's French midfielder Dimitri Payet, surrounded by officials, leaves the field holding an ice pack to his head
Marseille's French midfielder Dimitri Payet after he was hit by a bottle of water. (Photo by Philippe Desmazes / AFP

Abandoning games one of a series of measures announced after meetings between Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and French football chiefs in the wake of a
spate of incidents in the French league this season.

The government decided action needed to be taken after a match between Lyon and Marseille on November 21st was brought to a halt when Marseille skipper Dimitri Payet was hit by a plastic bottle thrown from the stands.

“If a referee or a player is injured by a projectile thrown from the stands the match will be automatically abandoned,” the ministries of the interior, justice and sports said in a joint statement.

The authorities took over two hours to reach a decision to call off the November 21st match – it will be replayed behind closed doors.

The government says that is too long to deliberate and that decisions over matches that are halted for non-sporting reasons should be reached in no longer than 30 minutes by a group that does not include the presidents of the football clubs concerned.

The call to prohibit the presidents from the decision-making process comes after Jean-Michel Aulas, Lyon president, received a five-match ban on Wednesday over his behaviour regarding whether the Lyon-Marseille match should resume.

“There will be a clear dividing line regarding the competence of the match referee and the police over the stopping of matches,” the ministerial statement said.

“A clearly thought out, unified and rapid decision must be reached.”

In addition, both the sale of plastic bottles on site and bringing them into the stadium will be barred “by July 1, 2022, at the latest”.

The ministerial troika – Darmanin was assisted by Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu and Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti – decided that the measures in place to bar supporters from stadiums were sufficient, but could be “better applied”.

Ligue 1 and tier two clubs must also have security measures in place from the 2022-23 season against projectiles being thrown, which the regional police chief can order them to install for particular matches.

No security net was in place at Lyon’s stadium nor at matches involving Marseille at Montpellier and Nice in August, when their players were targeted with projectiles.

Payet for his part had criticised the government and football authorities on Wednesday in an op-ed piece published by French daily Le Monde.

“I am surprised that the actors – the government, la Ligue, the clubs – do not assume a little more responsibility,” he wrote, calling it “a collective abrogation of duty.”

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CRIME

France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website

French authorities have uncovered a website for a fake recruitment drive purportedly seeking French volunteers to fight for Ukraine against the Russian invasion, the defence ministry said on Thursday.

France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website

The site has now been taken down by French services, a government source, who asked not to be named, told AFP without elaborating.

The site had said that 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine”, with immigrants given priority.

A link to the site – that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal – had been posted on X, formerly Twitter, the French defence ministry said.

“The site is a fake government site,” the ministry said, also on X, “and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign”.

The ministry did not say who they thought might be responsible. But a source close to the government told AFP initial evidence pointed to communications operations linked to Russian mercenary group Wagner.

“The accounts used and the technical data behind them, these are the people we know”, the source said.

“These people are still there and remain very focused on Ukraine. The subject of the French army is something that annoys them a lot.”

Separately, a government official speaking on condition of anonymity said the site bore “the hallmarks of a Russian or pro-Russian effort as part of a disinformation campaign claiming that the French army is preparing to send troops to Ukraine”.

French President Emmanuel Macron angered the Russian leadership last month by hardening his tone on the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In recent weeks he has refused to rule out sending ground troops and insisted that Europe has to do all that is necessary for a Russian defeat.

France has already accused Russia of waging a disinformation campaign against it.

The official told AFP that similar recent examples of disinformation posts included pictures of French army convoys wrongly presented as moving towards the Ukrainian border.

The fake website invited potential recruits to contact “unit commander Paul” for information about joining.

The defence ministry and government cyber units are investigating, ministry staff told AFP.

The French government has recently stepped up efforts to denounce and fight what it says are Russian disinformation and destabilisation campaigns aimed at undermining French public support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“Russia is asserting itself as the most aggressive player in the information field,” Marc-Antoine Brillant, the head of Viginum, an agency mandated to detect digital disinformation campaigns, said in an interview with French daily Le Figaro.

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