PSG Champions League Celebrations: Two Fans Dead, Cop In Coma Amid Revelry In France

Hours after Paris Saint-Germain’s historic UEFA Champions League title triumph, two supporters died and a police officer was in a coma amid mass nationwide celebrations for European football’s biggest prize, French authorities said on Sunday (June 1, 2025).

The casualties marred what began as a night of delight after PSG secured their first and long-awaited Champions League title, in a 5-0 thrashing of Inter Milan. The Eiffel Tower glowed in team colours, and fans partied through the night in celebrations that were largely peaceful but degenerated into violence in some areas.

A 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death in the western city of Dax during a PSG street party after the final in Munich, an Associated Press report quoted the national police service as saying. A man in his 20s was killed in Paris when his scooter was hit by a car during PSG celebrations, the interior minister’s office said. The circumstances of both are being probed.

A police officer was hit accidentally by fireworks at a PSG gathering in Coutances in northwest France and placed in an artificial coma because of grave eye injuries, the national police service said. In all, 192 people were injured around the capital, four of them seriously, the Paris police chief said.

The team is expected to return to a big victory parade on the Champs-Elysees later, with up to 110,000 people allowed along the iconic, tree-lined avenue to see the victorious players. They will eventually join fans packed into PSG's home stadium, the Parc des Princes, on the city's western edge, for a concert and light show and official presentation of the Champions League trophy.

A wide swathe of central Paris was closed to traffic for the exceptional day. The security measures are also impacting the French Open unfolding nearby. Thousands of police are being deployed to keep order, and will employ similar tactics as they did the previous night, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told reporters. AP also reported the use of tear gas near the stadium and water cannons near the Arc de Triomphe to disperse rowdy crowds.

In addition to the injuries and arrests, Nunez said four stores were looted overnight. Firefighters were so busy extinguishing garbage can fires in the middle of celebrations and dealing with other emergencies that the fire hotline was saturated.

At the time of writing, a total of 294 arrests were reported to have been made, including 30 people who broke into a shoe shop on the Champs-Elysees. Two cars were set alight close to Parc des Princes, police added.

At the Place de la Bastille, there were joyous scenes as fans climbed onto the base of the famous column, singing, dancing and letting off flares, while those around joined in.

At one point, motorbikes loudly revved their engines and the crowd cheered as they did laps around the column. There were no police nearby and, by 1 a.m., the atmosphere was upbeat with no tensions and plenty of singing.

Nunez blamed the scattered troubles on ″thousands of people who came to commit acts of violence″ instead of watching the match. He noted similar unrest on the sidelines of prior celebrations in the capital, such as after France’s World Cup win in 2018.

(With AP inputs)