The front page of Wednesday’s Libération depicts Gérald Darmanin as Pinocchio
(Picture: ES Composite)France’s Interior Minister has been portrayed as a Pinocchio-style liar by one of the country’s biggest daily newspapers following comments about Liverpool fans.
The front page of Wednesday’s Libération depicts Gérald Darmanin, 39, as the boy whose nose lengthens everytime he twists the truth.
It is all part of a massive French onslaught against Mr Darmanin, the equivalent of Britain’s Home Secretary, which has included calls for his immediate resignation.
In a hard-hitting editorial, Libération mocks Mr Darmanin for an alleged cover-up of widescale security failings at Saturday’s European Champions League final in Paris.
They led to Liverpool fans including children being tear-gassed and beaten by riot police, along with others attending the sell-out match against Real Madrid at the Stade de France.
Instead of accepting the blame, Mr Darmanin has continually repeated claims that up to 40,000 Liverpool fans, many with fake tickets, were largely to blame.
‘Fiasco At the Stade de France,’ reads the Libération headline – ‘Darmanin fakes the match’.
A hard-hitting editorial by Dov Alfon, the paper’s editorial director, asks where all those without tickets went after failing to get into the Stade.
‘How can 40,000 football fans evaporate over 800 meters?’ says the article. ‘It is time for the Minister of the Interior to abandon his fanciful explanations.’
It comes as Mr Darmanin prepares to answer questions about the scandal at the Paris Senate, the French parliament’s second chamber.
‘The Minister, who persists in throwing the responsibility on the English, must explain himself this Wednesday before the Senate,’ reads Libération.
‘If we prefer to believe the explanations of the Minister of the Interior, it would rather be a detective enigma to rival the best classics of Agatha Christie.’
And, referring to a ‘state scandal’, the editorial continues: ‘The 2022 Champions League final is likely to remain in the annals of the Republic even when it will be forgotten by football fans.’
Mr Darmanin will be at the Senate with ‘his acolyte the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra’, who is also accused of making up unlikely claims about Liverpool.
Libération adds: ‘Bad luck, the president of the law commission, François-Noël Buffet does not seem to believe in too supernatural phenomena or too convenient intelligence reports.’
And it concludes: ‘Subsidiary question: can we finally give up the state lie, especially when it is quite ridiculous?’
Senior colleagues of Mr Darmanin in the Interior Ministry and police have are also reported to have told Mediapart, the French investigative news site, that his ‘absurd accusations brought against 30,000 to 40,000 supporters’ are all part of a cover-up by Mr Darmanin.
UEFA, the European football body, is launching an independent inquiry into the treatment of Liverpool fans at the weekend.
And thousands of the club’s supporters around the world have called for an apology from the French government for what happened.
