has been firmly criticised by France's sports minister,
who demanded swift action.
French sports minister Thierry Braillard labelled the violent
scenes that marred Sunday's Ligue 1 match between Marseille
and Lyon as "unacceptable".
Mathieu Valbuena's return to his former club with Lyon provided
a fiery backdrop to the fixture and the playmaker found himself
at the centre of the action as tensions reached boiling point.
Lyon led through Alexandre Lacazette's 25th-minute penalty
and they also had a one-man advantage when Roman
Alessandrini was sent off for a rash tackle on the impressive
Valbuena.
Play was suspended for 23 minutes during the second half as
Valbuena was pelted by objects as he prepared to take a corner
– an assault that saw six stadium stewards come to the
assistance of the player.
Upon the restart, Karim Rekik headed an equaliser and Marseille
held out for a 1-1 draw.
Braillard voiced his concern over the grim spectacle as France
prepares to host Euro 2016 and called for tougher measures to
assist with the control of crowd behaviour.
"We are, after all, months from a tremendous event which is the
organisation of the European football championship and I really
call for everyone to assess what happened," Braillard told
French radio RTL.
"This is unacceptable and I think we really need to have much
firmer controls.
"Marseille is a footballing city. The Marseille public is known to
be a great public. I think there are security measures that must
be respected and we can't see glass bottles like that in the
stands.
"Where are we going? Imagine that a bottle had struck a player.
What situation would we be in today? It's unacceptable and I
think that we really need to tighten up controls."
LFP president Frederic Thiriez has called an emergency meeting
at the organisation's Paris headquarters after a weekend that
also saw clashes at the match between Bastia and Nice, while
Paris Saint-Germain fans were involved in disturbances after
their 1-1 draw at Reims.
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