French interior minister accused of lying

PARIS: French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin faced growing criticism and accusations of lying on Wednesday after he blamed the chaos at this weekend’s Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid on “massive” ticket scams.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen suggested he should resign after he defended the French police and blamed ticket counterfeiting for the crushes on Saturday which overshadowed the biggest night in European football.

“The facts are extremely serious and the lie by the minister is extremely serious,” Le Pen told France 2 television.

“In any other democracy, faced with such a fiasco, with chaos that occurred in front of 400 million people watching on television, which offered a dreadful image of France, then he should consider himself that he should resign,” she added.

Darmanin blamed “massive, industrial-scale and organised fraud in fake tickets” for the chaos and said that 30,000 to 40,000 Liverpool fans had turned up at the stadium either “without tickets or with counterfeited tickets”.