Macron backs interior minister over Champions League fiasco

PARIS :French President Emmanuel Macron has backed his interior minister in a row over events surrounding and responsibility for chaotic scenes at Sunday's Champions League Soccer final in Paris.

Gerald Darmanin is under fire over crowd trouble and a heavy-handed police response at European soccer's season-ending showpiece between Liverpool and Real Madrid, which was delayed by more than 30 minutes after officers forcefully held back people trying to enter the ground.

Riot police tear-gassed fans, including women and children.

Darmanin, who is due to be questioned over the fiasco on Wednesday by a Senate committee, has blamed Liverpool and its supporters. The English club had failed to manage its fans, tens of thousands of whom had arrived without valid tickets, he said.

That version of events has been challenged by Liverpool fans who attended and by the government's political opponents, while European soccer's governing body UEFA has commissioned an independent report into the trouble at the match, which Real won 1-0.

French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, who is also due to be questioned in the Senate, has commissioned a separate report.

The events have become a political issue ahead of next month's parliamentary elections and embarrassed France, which is due to host the Rugby World Cup in 2023 and the Olympic Games in 2024.

Macron "has full confidence in Gerald Darmanin as Interior Minister," government spokeswoman Olivia Gregoire told reporters on Wednesday.

Darmanin has acknowledged police had been caught off-guard by several hundred local "delinquents" who turned up to cause trouble and said the situation could have been handled better.

But he has also maintained that 30,000-40,000 Liverpool fans arrived at the Stade