Can this France-Israel match, which will be played this Thursday evening at the Stade de France, still claim to be a sporting issue? It is to be hoped. But, even before the kick-off, this meeting shifted into the political field. And this, due to the attacks on Jewish supporters of Maccabi Tel-Aviv last week in Amsterdam, after their club's match against Ajax. Attacks described from Amsterdam, to Berlin, via Brussels, Jerusalem and Paris as anti-Semitic acts. One of the aggressors' slogans was “Free Palestine”.
No question of France backing down, no question of France submitting to all the sowers of hatred”
Therefore, was it necessary to maintain this France-Israel in Paris where here, too, the war in Gaza that Israel is waging in response to the massacres of October 7 perpetrated by Hamas terrorists is a source of tension? To this question, Bruno Retailleau, the Minister of the Interior, responded in the affirmative, as he reminded the Assembly on Tuesday: “With Michel Barnier, we wanted this match to take place where it was to take place, that is to say at the Stade de France. No question, as some have asked me, of canceling. No question that France will back down, no question that France will submit to all the sowers of hatred. »
“Genocide”
His response was directly aimed at La France insoumise. Since the attacks in Amsterdam, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's troops have continued to demand the cancellation of this match. A few minutes earlier, still in the Assembly, David Guiraud, the LFI deputy, accused the government and its supporters of being “accomplices to the genocide underway in Gaza”: “It will never be normal to welcome with open arms Israel in the middle of genocide, why don't you ban this match? »
This umpteenth controversy illustrates the divisions in the political class over the war in Gaza. But also and above all, the desire of La France insoumise to import, here, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to the point of having made it its main campaign subject during the European elections. For more than a year, LFI has posed itself as a fierce defender of the Palestinian cause, accusing, in each of its speeches, Israel of waging a “genocidal” war in Gaza. On Saturday, Bruno Retailleau reported to the courts the tweet of LFI MP Marie Mesmeur. In this message, the Ille-et-Vilaine elected official contests the anti-Semitic nature of the attacks in Amsterdam: “These people,” she writes, “were not lynched because they were Jews, but because that they were racist and supporting genocide. »
Up 192%
In reaction to this positioning of LFI, the RN, of which we cannot ignore the accusations of anti-Semitism which have marked the career of Jean-Marie Le Pen at the head of the FN, is now the defender of the Jews. On Tuesday, in the Assembly, it was an RN deputy who asked Bruno Retailleau if he was able to guarantee the safety of Israeli supporters for Thursday's match…
In fact, France is far from being spared from the rise in anti-Semitism. According to a note from the national directorate of territorial intelligence, anti-Semitic acts jumped by 192% between the first half of 2024 and the first half of 2023. More than one in two racist attacks concerns a Jew.
