chargement...
The Paris Police Prefecture has issued a new order banning football fans from gathering on the Champs-Élysées until January 1 at 2:00 a.m., marking the end of the group stage of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON 2025), currently being hosted in Morocco.
The decision was formalized in an order published on Tuesday, December 23, after an earlier and broader ban was partially overturned, Le Parisien reports.
Initially, the Paris Police Prefecture had prohibited all supporter gatherings on the iconic avenue for the entire duration of the tournament, from December 21 to January 19, citing serious risks to public order, including the potential use of pyrotechnics, as well as the heavy tourist presence on the Champs-Élysées during the end-of-year holiday period.
That initial order was later invalidated by the administrative court, following the tournament’s opening match between Morocco and Comoros. As a result, the police prefecture withdrew the first decree and replaced it with a new one, narrower in scope but similar in substance, applying specifically to the group phase of AFCON 2025.
The prefecture again justified the ban by pointing to the exceptional crowd density on the avenue during the festive season, recalling that previous AFCON editions had been marked by disturbances and public order incidents in the area.
Although the initial order was withdrawn, a police source told the French newspaper that similar restrictions could be reintroduced later in the tournament through additional prefectural orders, depending on how the competition unfolds.
It is worth noting that during the previous AFCON, similar restrictions in Paris were imposed only from the semi-final stage onward. By contrast, no such bans were enacted during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, despite large public gatherings in the French capital.
