As a French gendarme hovered between life and death in a Lille hospital yesterday, French and German leaders and football federation officials deplored the hooligan violence in the northern French town of Lens in which the policeman was critically injured.
As details of the attacks by German "hools" emerged, French authorities were alarmed to discover that they are a more organised - and potentially lethal - force than the English ruffians who rioted in Marseille a week ago.
The German World Cup coach, Bertie Vogts, said he would have preferred to lose the match in Lens against Yugoslavia, if that would save the gendarme's life. Daniel Nivel (43), a father of two, was guarding a riot police bus while his colleagues warded off a charge by up to 300 German "hools" in the main street of Lens.
A small group broke off and with military precision headed for the gendarmes' rear lines through side streets. After he was knocked to the ground with iron bars and pieces of wood, the Germans kicked Mr Nivel's bleeding, inert body.
One of the assailants, Marcus Warnecke (27) from Hanover, is expected to be charged today. Warnecke had an iron bar in his hands when he was arrested and spent the night in a drying-out cell. A dozen Germans also attacked a Brazilian cameraman. As they ran through the streets of Lens, the Germans chanted, "Hoo-Hoo-Hooligan".
President Chirac said all French people "deplore and condemn this unacceptable violence". Visiting the gendarmerie's World Cup security headquarters "because of the drama that occurred last night", the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, said the main characteristic of the hooligans was cowardice. The Interior Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Chevenment, called them fascists.
"This modern vandalism cannot be condemned strongly enough," the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, said.
After a meeting held to discuss the violence that has stained the World Cup, FIFA said it "severely condemns the latest acts of barbaric violence, the perpetrators of which have no connection with football or any other sport." FIFA said politicians and the EU had to do more to fight the problem.
For the first time, Mr Chevenement followed through with emergency expulsion orders against six of the 93 Germans arrested in Lens and four Englishmen in Toulouse, where England played Romania last night. Five Englishmen and a Tunisian arrested last week in Marseille were to have been expelled but were instead given prison sentences.
The Sunday night violence was different from the riots between English and Tunisian supporters in Marseille. Some 700 Germans gathered at the Lens train station in the morning and in a cold, premeditated way set out in small groups to seek confrontation with police, co-ordinating their movements by portable phone.
The German "hools" drink less than their English counterparts, but like them are suspected of neo-Nazi sympathies.
Andrew Woodcock (30), a journalist with the Associated Press, was hospitalised with a broken collar bone in Toulouse last night. He was attacked by English supporters outside the stadium half an hour before the England-Romania match.
Trouble erupted briefly before midnight in the main square in Toulouse last night when more than 2,000 England fans gathered and started charging in every direction, hurling bottles.
