The deputy (LFI) Louis Boyard asked this Friday 1is November the cancellation of the France – Israel football match scheduled for November 14 at the Stade de France, but the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau said he was doing well “a question of principle”while opening the door to a reduction in the gauge. “I don’t want this match to happen”declared on Sud Radio Mr. Boyard, who is relaying a petition asking for the cancellation of this meeting of the League of Nations.
While the war that has been raging since October 7, 2023 in the Gaza Strip has spread to Lebanon, where Israel has been carrying out massive airstrikes against the Islamist Hezbollah movement since September 23, Louis Boyard invoked “article 4 of the FIFA statutes which explains that universal human rights must be respected”.
“Let’s put an end to double standards”
The rebellious MP argued that the International Federation had “sometimes applied to other countries” sanctions, like Russia, Belarus or South Africa. “But on the other hand, when it comes to the policy of the Israeli government, we do absolutely nothing”he denounced, asking “to put an end to double standards”, in particular on behalf of “42,000 dead” (43,204 to date, editor's note) recorded by the Hamas government in Gaza.
But, for the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, interviewed on BFMTV-RMC, the meeting will be held in Saint-Denis, “and we will of course adapt the security system”.
Police chief Laurent Nuñez had promised two weeks ago “an extremely reinforced security system which will be of a very high level”tant “outside and inside the stadium”.
A “reinforced” and “adapted” security system
In this context, could the gauge of 80,000 spectators be revised downwards? “This is a point that we are currently studying”admission Bruno Retailleau. “But what I wanted was for us not to move, for example to the Parc des Princes” – in the 16th arrondissement of Paris -, which has 48,000 places, he continued.
Because, castigating LFI, which according to him seeks to “import the conflicts of the Middle East into our neighborhoods and into France”Mr. Retailleau assured that this meeting would run smoothly “a question of principle”.
“We are in France and we must be able to enforce public order”he insisted. The environmentalist MP Sandrine Rousseau was circumspect about the initiative of her colleague from the New Popular Front: “Really, I don’t think it can be played out in a football match and I don’t get into that”she evaded on France 2.
