PARIS — French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will monitor in person Thursday’s football match between France and Israel, which has been labeled a “high-risk” event by a top security official.
Retailleau was briefed Monday on the extensive security measures for the UEFA Nations League game, an adviser said. The adviser, who was granted anonymity to discuss the subject candidly, added that Retailleau will be in one of the stadium’s security operations rooms for the game.
Security concerns intensified following recent violence involving an Israeli team in Amsterdam. Israeli supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv were attacked in a targeted assault by locals after their match against Dutch club Ajax last Thursday night. Prior to the incident, some Maccabi fans had pulled down Palestinian flags in Amsterdam’s city center and destroyed a taxi, the city’s acting police chief said last week, and repeatedly chanted anti-Arab slogans.
Paris security chief Laurent Nuñez said that a total of 4,000 security personnel would be stationed in and around the stadium for what he called a “high-risk” event in an interview Sunday with BFMTV.
Approximately 20,000 tickets have been sold so far, the French Football Federation’s President Philippe Diallo told local daily Ouest-France, which suggests a security ratio of nearly one agent for every five attendees.
Even before the Amsterdam violence, the France-Israel match had been a political flashpoint. Last week, activists staged a sit-in at the French Football Federation’s headquarters, calling for the game to be canceled in protest against Israel’s war in Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians. France Unbowed, the largest left-wing party in the French National Assembly, also called for the match to be canceled.
On the opposite end of the political spectrum, far-right National Rally MP Julien Odoul suggested relocating the match to Corsica, an island off the southern coast of France where his party’s candidate Marine Le Pen finished first in the last presidential election. Odoul claimed that there “is no antisemitism” on the island.
Retailleau, however, insisted that the game take place at the French team’s home stadium in Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris, and remain open to the public, according to his adviser.
The Stade de France has been a theater for several security crises. During the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris, three suicide bombers unsuccessfully attempted to enter the stadium. All three died and a bystander outside the stadium was also killed. The Stade de France also hosted the 2022 UEFA Champions League final that saw fans crushed, pepper-sprayed and beaten by police due to failed crowd management policy.
The many Olympic events which took place in the venue this summer, however, went smoothly.
Although security has been left in the hands of police authorities, the minister requested strict enforcement of a ban on all flags except those of France or Israel.
Israel’s National Security Council has advised its citizens to “categorically avoid attending” the match. Ticket sales were already sluggish before the attacks around the Maccabi Tel Aviv vs. Ajax match, and Thursday’s game is expected to be the lowest-attended French national team encounter ever at the Stade de France by a significant margin.
French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Michel Barnier and former President Nicolas Sarkozy, an avid football fan, are all expected to attend the match.
The game has domestic consequences as France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish community and has a substantial Muslim population too. Tensions are likely to remain high throughout the week.
In addition to the France-Israel game, Israel’s ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is scheduled to attend a gala hosted by the French Jewish association Israel Is Forever, which is politically aligned with the far right.
Protests against Smotrich’s anticipated visit to Paris have already been announced, though his travel plans have yet to be confirmed, the French foreign ministry said Tuesday.
The post French government official to oversee ‘high-risk’ France vs. Israel football match appeared first on Politico.
