Paris is on edge due to the Nations League match between France and Israel tonight in the Stade de France. No fewer than 4,000 officers are deployed to ensure safety. To leave nothing to chance, a requested pro-Palestinian demonstration has been moved to another location, writes ‘Le Parisien’.
The football match between The Blues and the Israeli national team is perhaps the most heavily secured sporting event in French history. Paris has both a large Muslim and Jewish community. Since the war in Gaza, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in France has increased dramatically. In the first half of 2024, 887 cases were registered, almost three times as many as the 304 recorded in the same period last year, the French Interior Ministry announced in August.
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The unexpected change in location of a pro-Palestinian demonstration testifies that the tension is escalating. Protesters who believe that the football match should not be played would normally gather at the town hall of Saint-Denis at 6 p.m. – three hours before kick-off. The Stade de France is located in this Parisian suburb. (Read more below the photo)
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators demonstrated in Paris on Wednesday evening in the run-up to the Nations League meeting. — © AFP
“Unwise”
The location was changed on the orders of Laurent Nuñez, the prefect of the Parisian police. Near the town hall is a station of metro line 13, the line that also serves the nearest station of the Stade de France. Protesters could reach the stadium in just under 20 minutes. The location of the demonstration has therefore been moved to Front Popculair, also in Saint-Denis, which is also the terminus of metro line 12. That location is about a half-hour walk from the stadium.
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More importantly, the demonstrators on their way to the demonstration will not be able to encounter football supporters in the metro on their way to the match. The Paris police expect that the majority of the estimated 20,000 supporters will mainly use metro lines 13 and 14. Police Prefect Nuñez told the news channel France Info that the original location of the demonstration was “unwise”. The organizers of the demonstration, including a member of parliament from the far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI), are said to have agreed to the change of location, the police prefect said.
