PARIS (AP)—Dressed in designer labels and raising the occasional Nazi salute, the drunken, white mob marched through Paris’ Left Bank en route to watch the city’s premier soccer club, Paris-Saint Germain.
“PSG, hoo-li-gan!” reverberated their chilling cry. Riot police looked on as they beat and kicked a lone Arab man.
Weeks earlier at the same spot, a similar mob doused a group of black train passengers with beer and shouted monkey chants at a black woman carrying her small child until she fled frantically up an escalator.
Both times—before the League Cup final between PSG and Lens on March 29 and before the French Cup final against Lyon on May 24—these episodes occurred not at a stadium but in the Saint-Michel train station, a bustling transport hub in Paris’ historical center.
Both times, there were no preventative measures put in place, no police escort and no police intervention.
Racism also has dogged France’s national team, which plays Romania in the opening Group C match Monday in the European Championship. France captain Patrick Vieira, who is black, once said he’d “think twice before setting foot” again at PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium after fans howled monkey chants. Former PSG and France midfielder Vikash Dhorasoo was racially insulted when playing for the club in 2005-2006.
The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, known by its French acronym LICRA, asked for governmental action after the March 29 train incident.
On that day, about a dozen black passengers had to flee up an escalator as PSG fans coming down the other way doused them with beer, hurled bottles, and several started to give chase.
“One color, white power!” shouted some, thumping the roof of the train.
La Ligue 2007/2008 | Campeonato | Day 19
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