A Metropolitan Police officer has been taken to hospital after being hit in the head with a glass bottle during disorder in central London that followed Morocco’s elimination from the World Cup by France.
The Metropolitan Police said officers were called to Edgware Road, in west London, late on July 9 after a crowd blocked the road. It said the situation escalated when people began throwing bottles and setting off fireworks.
Four people were arrested and officers in riot gear were sent in to clear the street, which reopened at about 1am. The London Ambulance Service said it had treated a man at the scene shortly after 11pm and taken him to hospital.
“We will not tolerate such disorder on our streets, or attacks on our officers,” a Met spokesperson said. The force said it was reviewing CCTV and social media footage.
France beat Morocco 2-0 in the quarter-final in Boston, with second-half goals from Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé.
There was also unrest in the Netherlands, where riot police were deployed in The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Dutch news agency ANP reported that officers in the Hague district of Schilderswijk were pelted with glass bottles and that an anti-Semitic slogan was chanted at the junction of Vaillantlaan and Hoefkade.
Police warned the crowd shortly after 1am that force would be used if it did not disperse. Eleven people were arrested in The Hague and eight in Amsterdam, where fires were started in the Osdorp area and officers were hit with fireworks, stones and furniture.
Amsterdam police said the mood during the match had been festive and that most supporters went home after the final whistle. Around 220 traffic fines were issued in the city, including for speeding and driving on tram lines.
Dutch justice minister David van Weel said the trouble had been less serious than feared, adding that any violence was too much and that he regretted the need to deploy riot units.
In France, where the authorities had braced for the worst, the night passed off largely without incident. More than 20,000 police and gendarmes were deployed nationwide, about 8,000 of them in Paris, where drones were authorised to monitor the streets.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez had instructed prefects on July 1 that no disorder should be tolerated and that any incidents should meet an immediate response. French and Moroccan supporters celebrated together on the Champs-Élysées, with only isolated incidents reported elsewhere, including in Grenoble.
The 2022 World Cup semi-final between the two countries led to 266 arrests across France, 167 of them in Paris, according to the Paris police prefecture. France is home to a Franco-Moroccan community estimated at more than 1.5 million people.
