The Night Paris Broke My Heart (a Little)
It’s a strange thing about some sports fans - their need to destroy things when expressing what should be joy. I am a sports fan. But I have never been prone to destroying things when my teams win.
The Chargers have never won, Rudy.
Look, asshole, the Chargers are not the only team I cheer for.
I always thought it was a uniquely American attribute with some exception for English hooliganism. As the only real soccer played in the United States is played by women their fans aren’t the drunk, testosterone-fueled dickheads overcompensating for something else.
My own experience with football in Paris has been nothing but fun and celebratory whether it’s Paris-St. Germaine, the French National Team, or the Olympics. The most raucous thing I have ever experienced was Brazil fans shutting down Blvd. Murat and turning it into one of the best parties of my life.
Seriously, if you ever get a chance to go to a Brazil National sporting event - do it. Their fans are loud, fun, warm, and possibly the most beautiful humans I have ever encountered. And holy fuckballs can they party.1
I’m getting off track. Sorry about that.
I live a three minute walk to Parc Des Princes which happens to be the home stadium of PSG Football Club. For those of you who are not sports fans, the PSG FC just won the biggest game in Europe - UEFA Champions League.2
The entire city was a party in the days leading up to the match. I quite expected the country of joie de vivre would celebrate, win or lose, with their usual panache and irreverence; fireworks and singing all around!
But there were clues along the way.
Fireworks everywhere. Shops closing early. Businesses boarding up storefronts.
Clues. Everywhere.
I watched the match in my living room, but I could hear the crowds outside. In fact, there was a group of young men and boys across the street watching through a window who seemed to have the game stream a few seconds ahead of what was on my television. They let me know when PSG scored before I saw it. At halftime I went out to my second story balcony (3rd story in the US) to have a smoke and watch this guy shoot off fireworks.
Just after I snapped this photo the group of young men and boys left their viewing party and started walking towards fireworks man and chased him off. I thought it was odd. Later it occurred to me that what those boys were doing was self-policing. I would see it a lot that night.
The second half of the match was a blowout. I could hear the celebration from the stadium and the streets. I was ebullient and needed to get out with the crowd and share this joy with others who were feeling the same. I expected it would feel like the Olympics - two weeks of strangers treating each other like best friends. There were no losers, only cultural exchange and a united humanity.
In hindsight I think that expectation is what lead to my crushing disappointment and subsequent melancholy over what happened next.
What happened next was that I grabbed my camera and headed out into the maddening crowd. And therein lies my mistake.
I headed up Michel-Ange and could see the revelry from a hundred meters away. Fireworks, chanting, horns blaring. It was, from a distance, joyous, boisterous, and nothing unexpected. Fireworks and dancing. I thought, that’s whassup and picked up my pace. By the time I got to Place de la Porte Saint-Cloud I was almost floating.
Everyone seemed so fucking happy!
Then I saw it.
My gut said, go take a photo and get the fuck out. I should have just stayed home.
I rounded the circle and crossed at Blvd. Murat to the front of Sainte Jeanne de Chantal church where the cars were burning.
I took my video and some photos when all of a sudden there was a stampede. It was not my first stampede so I stepped up onto the stairs of the church, behind a pillar and waited for the crowd to be gone. I was about to keep walking towards the stadium when three boys asked me to take a photo of them with my camera so I snapped those off, gathered the kid’s email, and promised to send them to him.
Please, do not @ me with your indignation. A teenage boy who did not set the fire is not the enemy here. He was a dumb kid with his friends out and about wanting a high resolution capture of this moment for himself and his friends. Frankly, I was impressed at his mental acuity. I offered to take it with my phone and text it to him, but he wanted the real thing.
In the time it took to snap a few shots and get an email address there came another stampede. This one was different than the first in scope. My path to the church steps was impeded by hundreds of people running so I found a tree and ducked. My eyes started to burn.
Fuck.
A young man confirmed it. GAZ! and pointed for me to run. I stayed to the side, walking briskly with my shirt over my face. I knew it didn’t help, but I wasn’t thinking. I made it to a quieter stretch and saw people helping one another flush their eyes with water. That was my cue—it was time to go home.
The streets in Paris all have amazing stories. They are named after famous people, or cool places. The little side street that completes the circle of my block is named after a retired General who joined the French Resistance until he was captured by the Nazis and killed at Dachau. I think about that story every time I walk Dexter down Rue du General Delestraint. I was thinking about it now. It was a safe place, a way to get out of this sudden shitstorm.
There were scores of cops blocking it. Shit.
If I stay on Murat I would be with the masses in their stampede and I would be getting closer to the stadium which, by now was the last place I wanted to be. I saw a lone cop - the only one unmolested - and said in my broken french, j’habite a Michel-Ange. He looked me up and down nodded and let me through.
All told I was gone maybe twenty minutes, half-hour tops. I was glad I left Dexter at home. I rinsed my face and went to my balcony a little heartbroken. I lit a smoke and some hooligans set off fireworks that caught some trash bins on fire. A battalion of motorcycle cops showed up.
The police in Paris were not unnecessarily violent (looking at you, United States). People on the streets celebrating, or walking to the metro, or just existing were left largely alone. Even asshats throwing bottles at them didn’t provoke violence. Sure, setting cars on fire will get the tear gas out, but c’mon, even I have to side with the cops on that one.
In the end I had to wait til four in the morning to take Dexter out for his nightly bedtime bathroom break. He’s a good boy. As I drifted off to sleep I found myself thinking, so Paris isn’t perfect after all.
And that made me sad for a bit, honestly.
Then I remembered Boston after the Red Sox won their first World Series. Or Los Angeles when cops who beat a black man senseless are acquitted. Or Detroit… or Philadelphia…or… and I love those cities. So yeah, Paris had a bad weekend and a lot of people did a lot of stupid shit. But you know what?
The good so far outweighs the bad that it isn’t even close.
Bad things happen in big cities.
Anyone who has ever lived in a big city knows that.
But so few big cities have so much magic.
I never needed Paris to be perfect. She has grace enough to let me be imperfect I suppose I can do the same for her.
However, if you are a crotchety old fuck, avoid Brazilian sports. Specifically, if you’re the crotchety old fuck who complained to the staff at Parc Des Princes about Brazil fans, well, I hope your underwear is forever filled with sand in all you tender bits.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/sports/article/2025/06/01/psg-holds-victory-parade-in-paris-with-champions-league-trophy-after-overnight-violence_6741896_9.html