French interior minister Gérald Darmanin, who has been strongly criticised over the policing arrangements for last Saturday's Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid, when thousands of fans were caught for hours in a mass crush outside the Stade de France, has defended the handling of the event despite numerous complaints of police brutality and inadequate access to the stadium.
The British government has announced the launching of a detailed investigation into the drowning last November of 27 people, three of whom were children, during their clandestine crossing of the Channel from France to England, following legal action by lawyers acting for several of the victims' families who suspect 'serious failings' in rescue operations.
The 'shambles outside the ground' of the Champions league final on Saturday between Liverpool and Real Madrid was 'a PR disaster for the French state, which may explain its attempt to shift the blame on to fans in a buck-passing exercise that was instantly derided and disproved' writes the chief football writer for The Times.
Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, 32, was accompanying the evacuation of civilians from a zone in eastern Ukraine on Monday when what was reportedly a bomb from Russian artillery fire struck the vehicle he was travelling in.
French interior minister Gérald Darmanin on Monday said the potentially dangerous bottleneck of tens of thousands of Liverpool fans on Saturday trying to enter the Stade de France for the Champions League cup final of their team against Real Madrid was due to 'industrial scale' ticket fraud, which he said 'only seems to happen with certain English clubs'.
UEFA and French police have blamed Liverpool fans for the delayed kick-off at the Champions League final - but British police say Reds supporters' behaviour was "exemplary".
Jean-Luc Martinez faces claims over helping traffic millions of dollars worth of stolen art, some of which is alleged to have ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
