French efforts to maintain calm around the European Championships kicking off today got off to a bad start last night when police and England football fans clashed in the southern city of Marseille. According to Reuters four police officers and two fans were hurt in the course of the violence. Two English fans were arrested, but further inquiries are bound to come after reports that English fans were engaging in some form of ISIS chanting.
Some witnesses reported hearing fans chant, 'We love you ISIS, we do'; others, 'ISIS, where are you?'
Clashes between the police and fans involved chairs being thrown and violent physical exchanges that left the streets in a glass-strewn mess.
You can generally always guarantee one thing at a major footy tournament. pic.twitter.com/W8TRHGougR
— Cian Carroll (@CianByName) June 10, 2016
In addition to the Gendarmerie, local gangs were also involved in skirmishes with the fans, although it is unclear which side may have provoked this. Some English fans claimed that they were doing nothing wrong and that the gangs attacked them unprovoked, while other reports indicate that the fighting started after English fans made remarks to a young Muslim boy walking past the bar where they were drinking.
The chief of security for the Three Lions' fans sought to remind people of the small number of fans partaking in the violence compared to the "thousands of England supporters" in Marseille who enjoyed a peaceful evening. He commented on the "dramatic" use of tear gas by the French forces to restore calm, but admitted that it had been an effective tool.
If security wasn't already going to be tight around England's Euro 2016 opening fixture with Russia tomorrow, it is sure to step up a notch after these incidents, which provoke memories of the hooliganism in Marseille and elsewhere that so tarnished the reputation of England fans during the 1998 World Cup in France.
