Rise in Ligue 1: door broken down, fences dismantled, tear gas… the very agitated reception of Saint-Etienne by its supporters at the airport

Many of them came to Andrézieux airport. – Screenshot

Access to the tarmac at Saint-Etienne airport was damaged overnight from Sunday to Monday when 2,000 Greens supporters came to welcome their team, which had just returned to Ligue 1 in Metz, we learned from the gendarmerie and the airport management, who will file a complaint. The material damage was being assessed Monday morning, the same sources indicate.

Amid the cries of joy, firecrackers and smoke bombs which went off around midnight, upon the arrival in Andrézieux-Bouthéon (Loire) of the plane which brought the players and their staff from Metz, the gendarmes used tear gas to try, in vain, to repel the most agitated supporters, who dismantled the fence in order to enter the tarmac.

A gendarmerie escort to Etrat

"The glass entrance door to the terminal hall was also broken in, as well as a gate access to the runways on which three planes " were parked, François Driol, president of the operating board of the ' #39;airport, which "deplores that these incidents were not better anticipated".

A gendarmerie escort was then set up to accompany the club bus to its headquarters in Étrat (Loire), where several had been waiting for hours 200 other supporters.

After two seasons in Ligue 2, the Saint-Etienne team returned to the elite of French football thanks to their 2-2 draw during the barrage return to Metz Sunday evening (2-1 on the first leg).