Football violence is about 'excitement' and 'proving one's masculinity', expert says • FRANCE 24

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]We're going to be looking at the issue of football violence, football-related violence. And of course, it comes off the back of the behavior of Paris Saint-Germain fans last weekend when the team was successful in winning the European Cup for the second successive season. This Tuesday, the development has been the French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asking President Emmanuel Macron to call an extraordinary parliamentary session in early July to speed up the adoption of the government's Réposte security bill after violence linked to the Paris Saint-Germain Champions League victory.

[00:00:29]More than 200 people were injured. These images really telling the scene. One person lost their life in Paris after the after PSG won the soccer Champions League for the second year in a row.

[00:00:41]The The bill was presented by the government on March the 25th. It's already been cleared by the Senate. It targets what the government calls everyday disorder including illegal rave parties, misuse of nitrous oxide, fireworks mortars, and drug use, and would widen some police and surveillance powers. Selena Sykes takes up the story.

[00:01:05]>> For the vast majority, it was a weekend of jubilation after PSG won back-to-back Champions League trophies.

[00:01:14]But these images of celebration in the French capital were marred by a minority.

[00:01:20]As clashes broke out between civilians and police, cars and bikes were set on fire, and shops were looted in Paris and other cities.

[00:01:28]As of Tuesday, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said there were more than 890 arrests across France on Saturday and Sunday, around 45% more than a year ago when PSG won the Champions League for the first time.

[00:01:43]98% of them were men, and 85% were French. For the French Prime Minister, the unrest was not a matter of fan violence, but rather a much broader phenomenon of delinquency. While speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Sébastien Lecornu threw his support behind security forces.

[00:02:03]>> Whatever happens, we must support our internal security forces, the police and the gendarmerie. For one simple and compelling reason, ladies and gentlemen MPs, their mission is to enforce the laws of the republic that you have voted for.

[00:02:17]>> Lecornu said he was also pushing to fast-track the government's new security bill through parliament and called for more to be done to ensure that perpetrators paid for damage rather than taxpayers. French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, vowed that offenders would face the full force of the law.

[00:02:34]The first sentences for theft, violence against police officers, and the possession of fireworks and weapons were handed out on Monday.

[00:02:43]>> Those images filmed near to Paris Saint-Germain's stadium. I was there 1400 hours on Saturday. That's many, many hours before the kickoff and there were already thousands of Paris Saint-Germain fans there. I was there for a rugby game at the ground next door, the Stade Jean-Bouin. There was already trouble brewing. Lots of CRS police present, too. What is this phenomenon about? Is it about football?

[00:03:04]Is it about delinquency? Is it about society or soccer? Let's get some expert insight and bring in Mateusz Grodeski, who's associate professor at the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw.

[00:03:15]Thank you, sir, for being with us.

[00:03:17]What's your feeling? Is it soccer or is it society?

[00:03:21]>> Uh actually, it's both. Uh the soccer is culturally related to the violence uh due to some contingent historical processes which, you know, started in England in the 1960s and then have spread to to the other European countries.

[00:03:39]But also, this is like, you know, this is like a social practice which which is connected to the football, but there are also some wider uh social There may be some wider social uh problems which can which can facilitate this kind of violence.

[00:03:56]>> It's funny because these a lot of these people taking part, they're not poor.

[00:04:00]They're not like sort of disgruntled poor people who don't have, you know, 100 euros or 120 euros to buy a nice Paris Saint-Germain shirt. Often you see they're wearing, you know, top line designer gear. So it's it's not just about It's not about being poor. It's not about being sort of not having opportunities. There's something else going on, isn't there?

[00:04:18]>> Yeah.

[00:04:20]The The research shows that usually the violence is about two things. It's about masculinity masculinity, sorry, proving one's masculinity by aggression, by showing other people that you are more tough than they are.

[00:04:37]And the second one is about excitement.

[00:04:39]So this is like this concept says that we are living in an unexciting society. So everything is not from, you know, everything is This is not exciting because our our life follows some rules. And the violence at football games provides some excitement.

[00:04:57]>> Indeed. I hear what you're saying about that because it does kind of give that sense of liberation when you're in in in the moment in a football match, you can express and shout and and do what you want. I I I grew up with the football environment. I I played a bit of football as a kid. I also went to one of the teams that had a fairly, how can I put it, active hooligan element at one period in its time. When I was going to the game a lot and I was a teenager and I ran with those people.

[00:05:22]But I realized very quickly that I was out of my depth, that you needed to be really I don't know, you needed to have something missing to really take part as much as they do and do the things that they need to do or feel they have to do.

[00:05:33]And I didn't understand it at all and I still struggle to get my head around it.

[00:05:36]Paris Saint-Germain won. Why do they have to riot?

[00:05:41]>> To be honest, I don't know. I know exactly To answer your question, we should ask who are the people who who have who are rioting. And and this question, to be honest, should be answered by the by the state, by the police by the police force to, you know, to to avoid this this this situations in the future. Because this is one of the biggest mistakes that European countries did in the past, that they tried to manifest the the they tried to address the manifestation of football-related violence. But they have never tried to address the real causes, social causes behind this. That's why they're they're asking the question who precisely has been engaged in this kind of disorder is the key to to understand this.

[00:06:30]>> You mentioned earlier that in the 1960s the phenomenon came to to the fore in in England and many people who are ignorant on this matter still call it the English disease, but the truth is it's changed, hasn't it?

[00:06:41]>> Yeah.

[00:06:41]>> Poland has a big problem.

[00:06:43]Serbia has a massive problem. And you go across Eastern Europe, it's a big problem round there. Italy has a big problem, too. And obviously as we're seeing here, France at certain time uh falls into this kind of mentality that you have to wreck everything around you.

[00:06:57]Um what happened in England to change it was the the Heysel disaster of '85, the ban of English clubs from Europe when Liverpool fans rioted against Juventus fans in Brussels. 38 people were killed, Italian fans. And then the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989 when 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives in what was deemed to be a mismanagement of the stadium. The English game changed.

[00:07:19]Things were all-seater stadiums were put in.

[00:07:22]The prices went up. They looked at getting a different market into the stadiums. That's what changed the England setup. But what will change it in Europe? Because already they were all-seater stadia. Already it's expensive to go to the game. Already you've got all those kind of things that maybe would hope to get rid of the elements that you don't want, but those elements are still there.

[00:07:44]>> Yeah, this is true, but I I mean I would argue with the fact that in that that everything has changed in England. Um but the the most important fact is that that what we are speaking when we speak about the reproduction of football related violence, we have to take into consideration that this is like social practice which is reproduced by the by the ideology of football rivalries.

[00:08:09]Uh foot in in simpler terms, the football we just we we just see the football in terms of football rivalries.

[00:08:16]That means that um that we see the football as a site when people are against each other. That leads to to groups who are >> World Cup be safe in Russia? That's the final question. Will the World Cup be safe?

[00:08:30]>> I think so, yeah. It's it's yeah, I think the World Cup will be safe.

[00:08:34]>> Okay, well that's that's something that's reassuring. I'm I'm going to watch it on TV cuz I I can't uh get over to watch it and I hope you enjoy watching uh the the games as they go out too and hopefully it passes off in a very peaceful manner. Mateusz Grądzki, thank you so much for being with us, associate professor at Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw.