Paris Cancels Celebration for Soccer Champions

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/world/europe/paris-cancels-celebration-for-soccer-champions.html

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PARIS — Officials canceled a city hall ceremony for the champions of France’s national soccer league on Tuesday after hundreds of rampaging fans attacked stores, cars and police officers in the capital during celebrations on Monday night. The violence, which left 32 people injured and 38 fans in police custody, erupted at an official celebration for Paris Saint-Germain, the winning team, near a neighborhood overlooking the Eiffel Tower.

“Any public event, in public space in the hours to come, around Paris Saint-Germain is obviously not possible,” Interior Minister Manuel Valls told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday, noting that some of the young rioters had been “drinking for hours.”

Opposition politicians said Mr. Valls and local officials had underestimated the threat of violence, and they called for the removal of Paris’s police prefect. Soccer violence is less a problem in France than in other European countries, but fans from opposing teams have been known to fight outside matches, and several Paris Saint-Germain fan clubs have been effectively barred from the team’s home stadium in Paris.

Paris Saint-Germain defeated the Olympique Lyonnais on Sunday, winning the championship of France’s top league for the first time since 1994.