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The match on November 14 in the League of Nations, anecdotal from a sporting point of view, will be played in front of only 20,000 spectators, supervised by some 4,000 police and gendarmes and 1,600 security agents. Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier are notably expected.
It has been a long time since the match between France and Israel, scheduled for Thursday evening, November 14 at the Stade de France, has been no longer a football match like any other as it has a symbolic and political significance which goes far beyond its sporting stakes. This League of Nations meeting (an anecdotal competition organized by UEFA) has, in fact, transformed into something completely different since the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023 and the Israeli invasion of Gaza and Lebanon. . Add to this the anti-Semitic violence and racist chants which marked Amsterdam on the sidelines of the meeting between Ajax and Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Thursday November 7, and you obtain a highly flammable object.
The atmosphere, first of all, looks gloomy. There will be no crowds in Saint-Denis since less than 20,000 tickets (the stadium has 80,000 seats) have found takers, according to the French Football Federation (FFF). Consequently, the upper part of the stands will be closed. Despite the welcome messages sent to them this Tuesday, November 12 by the Minister for Europe, Benjamin Haddad, there will not be many Israeli supporters. From Jerusalem, the National Security Council on Sunday urged its nationals to “avoid attending sporting matches and cultural events involving Israelis,” focusing precisely on this meeting. He also advises supporters not to display signs identifying them as Jewish or Israeli.
“An extremely reinforced system”
On the security side, you should expect “an extremely reinforced system” : 4,000 police officers and gendarmes, as well as 1,600 private agents (an average match in this stadium requires some 1,000 police officers and 1,000 stewards) will be mobilized “inside”, “in the immediate vicinity of the stadium, but also on all spectator paths”, according to the Paris police headquarters. In other words, on Thursday at the Stade de France, there will be one uniform for four supporter jerseys.
It will still be necessary to have passed the caudine forks of the police headquarters. The tickets are nominative and the identity of each person will be checked beforehand by the police in order to rule out certain profiles. “undesirable”. For the first time in France, according to the head of accreditation at the Stade de France, André Decarnelle, journalists are also concerned. To attend the match, they had to provide a passport or identity card number in order to be “riddled” by the prefecture.
Palestinian flags and “political messages” banned
Once there, the prefecture announces reinforced searches accompanied by identity checks. Water bottles, water bottles and backpacks will be prohibited. In an unprecedented move, the businesses located around the stadium will be closed from 3:30 p.m., while inside the enclosure, the first rows will be left empty to avoid the pitch being invaded. Besides, beware of those who would like to show anything other than support for one of the two teams on the field. Guest on Sunday November 10 on BFMTV, the police prefect, Laurent Nuñez, announced that for this “high risk match”, Palestinian flags and “political messages” will be prohibited in the enclosure.
On the left, voices were raised to call for the cancellation or boycott of the match in order to protest against the policy led by Benjamin Netanyahu. On Tuesday, the deputies of La France insoumise requested the cancellation of the meeting, highlighting a risk of “very strong disorder”. On the other hand, the government has made the match “a question of principle”, through the voice of his Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau. The stands will also welcome at least four eminently political guests: Emmanuel Macron, Michel Barnier, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy. But a question remains: is it really reasonable to play football in a fortress?
