French government split on halting football matches over homophobic chants

PARIS — The French government is struggling to speak with one voice on a long-standing issue in French football: homophobic chants during games.

On Thursday, Sports Minister Gil Avérous recommended in an interview that games be stopped and the home team declared the loser whenever homophobic chants are heard — a proposal quickly struck down by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau.

Homophobia and racism in sports is a problem across Europe, but the latest controversy in France erupted on Saturday between Paris Saint-Germain and Strasbourg. PSG’s supporters repeatedly sang a chant referring to their arch-rival Olympique de Marseille by a homophobic epithet. The two teams will square off in the French football Classique on Sunday.

PSG was sanctioned last year after fans sang the same chant at their home field, the Parc des Princes, before a match against Marseille. This time, the stadium announcer attempted but failed to interrupt the chant, saying that the Qatari-owned club stands against homophobia and discrimination.

Homophobic chants are a persistent issue in French football, not limited to the Parc des Princes.

“Homophobic chants, clashes between supporter groups, assaults on law enforcement officers— we can no longer tolerate seeing intolerable behaviors every weekend in sports,” Retailleau wrote on X earlier this week.

Unlike the sports minister, who proposed a strict protocol in stadiums — aligned with FIFA’s procedure to abandon games if discriminatory chants persist after an initial warning — the interior minister argued that “collective punishment” was “too easy.”

“I want individual sanctions,” Retailleau said in an interview with a well-known French sports program.

Retailleau said that undercover law enforcement officers would now be present in stands to identify those leading these chants. He also said that France’s three most-attended clubs — PSG, Marseille and Lyon — must implement a nominal ticketing system to identify troublemakers more easily. This policy is already in place in some stadiums, including Paris, though ID checks to verify ticket-holders are not consistently enforced.