6:53 p.m.: Israel recommends this evening to its citizens not to go to the France-Israel match, organized Thursday at the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis.
6:27 p.m.: Emmanuel Macron will attend the France-Israel match at the Stade de France on Thursday, according to information from RTL this evening. With his participation, Emmanuel Macron wishes to “show his full support for the French team, as he does in every match” explains the president’s entourage.
Furthermore, he also wishes to “send a message of fraternity and solidarity after the intolerable anti-Semitic acts which followed the match in Amsterdam this week”, continues this same source.
4:53 p.m.: A total of 4,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilized on Thursday for the “high risk” France-Israel match at the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis, 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.
In addition, Palestinian flags will be banned : “There cannot be a Palestinian flag at the Stade de France. There can only be French or Israeli flags, and messages of support for the teams,” said the police prefect.
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, continued Laurent Nuñez.
“It will be a high-risk match,” he said, in “a very tense geopolitical context” and a week after violence in Amsterdam between groups of individuals and supporters of Maccabi Tel-Aviv who sparked international condemnation.
“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.
