Here we are again, watching the continent of Charlemagne and Descartes descend into what can only be described as a bureaucratic circus, this time with the Champions League as its stage. The chaos outside the Stade de France, where ticketless youths scaled fences, police fired tear gas at children (yes, children), and Liverpool fans were manhandled like medieval serfs, is not merely a one-off fiasco. It is a symptom.
A symptom of a French state that has forgotten how to organise a piss-up in a brewery, let alone a football match of global significance. The parallels to the late Roman Empire, where administrative incompetence and a loss of civic discipline heralded collapse, are too obvious to ignore. But let us not dance around the elephant in the room: this is a continent-wide rot.
From the shambles of Euro 2020 to the persistent hooliganism in Italy and the porous security at German stadiums, Europe’s ability to manage mass events has degraded into a farce. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, that plucky island of order, stands ready to remind the world how it is done. We learned from Hillsborough.
We built the all-seater stadiums. We instituted robust policing strategies. And when the Euros final came to Wembley, despite the inevitable ticketless hordes, we did not tear-gas children.
The French, and by extension the continental powers, need to wake up from their intellectual decadence and realise that security is not a suggestion, it is a necessity. The UK stands ready to share its expertise, but more than that, it stands as a living rebuke to the notion that continental sophistication equals competence. The Champions League shambles is a mirror: look into it and see a failing infrastructure of public trust.
If France cannot secure a football match, what hope is there for the greater challenges ahead? The answer is grim. But Britain, as always, remembers how to keep order.
We may be the grumpy uncle of Europe, but at least we don’t set fire to the family home.
