Opponents of the France-Israel football match scheduled for this Thursday evening at the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), had planned to meet at 6 p.m. under the windows of the town hall. It is finally on the Place du Front-Populaire, terminus of line 12 of the metro, that this pro-Palestinian gathering will be held, whose slogan – “We do not play with genocide” – says everything about the geopolitical context particularly tense surrounding this League of Nations meeting.
Questioned this Thursday morning on France Info, Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez raised this possibility, specifying that he did not intend to ban this gathering in the name of the right to demonstrate. However, he believed that the choice of the initial location – the town hall of Saint-Denis – was not judicious, due to its proximity to the public transport lines serving the Stade de France.
“I am still in discussions with the organizers to find a point of agreement,” he indicated at the microphone of France Info. It is done, as confirmed to us this Thursday morning by the office of the mayor of Saint-Denis, party to the negotiations with the prefect of police and the constituency deputy Éric Coquerel (LFI), at the origin of this gathering.
The decision to move the demonstration to the Place du Front populaire, on the border with Aubervilliers, can be explained by the fact that the flow of spectators, who will take the route to the Dionysian enclosure with 80,000 seats this Thursday evening – only one quarter of the stands should be occupied — the majority will use RER B and D and metro lines 13 and 14.
Some 4,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilized this Thursday evening to secure the event.
