the stakes of the Blues match go beyond that of a traditional meeting, here’s why

FOOTBALL – “We made sure to prepare for this match as normally as possible, but obviously, in the entire France group, no one can be insensitive to this heavy and heavy context. » During his press conference on the eve of the match, Didier Deschamps set the scene for a football match like no other for the Blues, who are preparing to challenge Israel in the Nations League this Thursday, November 14 at the Stade from France.

Rather than on football, the public debate mainly focused, before the match, on the incidents of last week in Amsterdam, the calls for a boycott and the debates on maintaining the match in France against a backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . It is therefore in a context of extreme politicization, with heightened security issues, that the whistle will be blown this evening.

And the French players are not mistaken. They are well aware that this crucial match for them – guaranteed qualification for the quarter-finals of the competition in the event of victory – will take place in unusual circumstances. With only 20,000 spectators expected in the largest French stadium, undoubtedly the lowest attendance ever seen for a France match in the 80,000-seat Dyonisian enclosure.

The fear of an Amsterdam repeat

« I can understand why people don’t want to come.”also slipped the French defender Dayot Upamecano ahead of this match, anxious to respect the choice of the French supporters, not really excited by the risk of incidents and the prospect of a heavy atmosphere in the stands. For their part, the Israeli authorities on Sunday invited Israeli supporters to skip this meeting. Despite these recommendations, there will be 100 to 150 in the “visitors” parking lot in the stands, according to information from the Parisian.

In this ultra-secure context, the police will, on the contrary, be present in large numbers, with 4,000 police officers and gendarmes deployed around and – a rare occurrence – in the stadium, as well as in the capital’s public transport. This Thursday evening’s match is also classified “high risk” by the police prefect Laurent Nuñez, who admits a deployment of law enforcement “very unusual” for an international football match. Proof of this is with the front rows of the Stade de France which will not be accessible to supporters to anticipate any intrusion on the pitch.

Another marker of this anxiety-provoking context is the presence of the Raid to ensure the security of the Israeli selection, whose training and residence locations remain confidential. A security bubble decided a few days after the excesses which followed the Europa League match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel-Aviv on the night of November 7 to 8 in Amsterdam.

That evening, Israeli supporters were chased and beaten in the streets of the Dutch capital after leaving the stadium, leaving between 20 and 30 injured. Before the meeting, incidents had already broken out, in particular anti-Arab chants chanted by fans of the Israeli club.

Unthinkable relocation

Events that occurred a week before the Blues match which ended up eclipsing the sporting issues of this poster, in favor of a show of force by the French authorities to ensure the event took place. “ France is not backing down because that would amount to abdicating in the face of threats of violence and anti-Semitism », had justified the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau after the violence in Amsterdam.

Thus, several leading political figures wished to make an appearance in Saint-Denis. Among them François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy, Prime Minister Michel Barnier and the head of state Emmanuel Macron. The latter wishes “ send a message of fraternity and solidarity after the intolerable anti-Semitic acts in Amsterdam », According to the confidences of the president’s entourage to RTL.

In recent days, the tension is such that demands for relocation and boycott of the match have been heard, after a precedent in the France group in the League of Nations. On September 6, the Belgium-Israel poster was moved to Hungary, the Brussels authorities considering that it was « impossible » to organize “this very high risk match”.

With this unique context, we almost forget that the France team will have to cope without its captain and star striker Kylian Mbappé. This means…

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