The watchword: prevent all risks. Israeli authorities on Sunday called on supporters to avoid going to the France-Israel match next Thursday, which will be held just a week after the violence in Amsterdam.
The National Security Council, which reports to the Prime Minister’s office, “recommends that Israelis abroad act by taking precautions (…) particularly during the coming week, to completely avoid going to sporting events and cultural events in which Israelis participate, especially at the next Israeli team match in Paris.”
According to the same source, “organizations that want to attack Israelis have been identified in a number of European cities”, citing Brussels, major British cities, Amsterdam and Paris “on the occasion of the expected match of the “Israeli national team”. The organization also recommended that Israelis abroad “not display recognizable Israeli or Jewish signs, including when ordering a taxi through an app.”
Few tickets sold
Considered “high risk” by the French authorities, the France-Israel match on Thursday at the Stade de France will take place one week to the day after that between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel-Aviv, which was followed by violence in the Dutch city. This violence targeting Israeli supporters resulted in five temporary hospitalizations and around sixty arrests, according to Dutch police.
For the France-Israel meeting, counting for the Football League of Nations, 4,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilized, Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez announced on Sunday. Such a deployment of law enforcement corresponds to an “extremely reinforced system”, “very unusual”, for an international match, added the police prefect on BFMTV.
The 4,000 police forces will be deployed around and, rarely, in the stadium, as well as on public transport and throughout Paris. Around 1,600 security agents will also be mobilized at the Stade de France and the Raid, the elite unit of the national police, will be engaged for the security of the Israel team.
“We will not tolerate any excesses and disturbances to public order,” declared the police prefect, adding that controls to enter the stadium would be “extremely reinforced” but that the police had not “requested that there be a limited capacity” in the stadium for this League of Nations meeting. On Sunday, the French Federation (FFF) for its part estimated the number of tickets sold for the match at “around 20,000”, very far from the approximately 80,000 seats available at the Stade de France, while specifying that the ticket office was still open.
Emmanuel Macron himself will attend the football match at the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis, the Élysée told AFP on Sunday. According to the entourage of the President of the Republic, this is in particular “to send a message of fraternity and solidarity after the intolerable anti-Semitic acts which followed the match in Amsterdam this week”.
A gala denounced by associations
The French authorities will also be on alert the day before the match. An international right-wing Jewish movement announced on Sunday that it was planning a rally on Wednesday in Paris, the day when the “Israel for ever” gala will also be held to fight anti-Semitism, in the presence of a far-right Israeli minister, Bezalel Smotrich. .
Betar, which has numerous branches around the world and counts radical members in its ranks, plans to gather alongside the French Jewish Student Movement (MEJF), on the sidelines of the gala. The location is still unknown. French associations, unions and left-wing parties denounced the organization of the gala.
The prefect of police, Laurent Nuñez, had however given his agreement to this evening being held. Seized by the Coordination of Appeals for a Just Peace in the Middle East EuroPalestine to obtain an annulment of the decision of the police prefect, the administrative court ruled on Saturday that there was no reason to prohibit it. Laurent Nuñez also affirmed that the Israeli minister would not make the trip. “I understand that ultimately he won’t be there,” he said.
