France-Israel | A high-risk, ultra-secure soccer match

(Paris) This is a “high risk” match: the French team hosts Israel on Thursday at the Stade de France where an exceptional security system has been put in place, in a tense climate after last week’s violence on the sidelines of a Maccabi Tel-Aviv match in Amsterdam.

The sporting stakes of this meeting in the Paris suburbs counting for the League of Nations are largely eclipsed by the geopolitical context.

Securing the match has become a major issue as Europe faces a rise in racist and anti-Semitic acts since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza in October 2023.

“We will not give in to anti-Semitism,” President Emmanuel Macron assured BFMTV a few hours before the start of the meeting which he will attend in the stands.

A total of 4,000 police officers and gendarmes will be deployed around and, rarely, in the Saint-Denis stadium, as well as on public transport and throughout Paris.

Fears of excesses were reinforced after the serious incidents which followed the Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel-Aviv, on the night of November 7 to 8 in Amsterdam.

Israeli supporters were chased and beaten in the streets of the Dutch capital, attacks which left 20 to 30 injured and sparked outrage in many Western capitals. Before the match, Maccabi fans chanted anti-Arab chants and burned a Palestinian flag in the central Dam Square.

Surveillance of places of worship

The French authorities, however, have categorically ruled out giving up the match, or relocating it as Belgium did in September.

“Some are calling for the France-Israel match to be relocated. I do not accept it: France is not backing down because that would amount to abdicating in the face of threats of violence and in the face of anti-Semitism,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau wrote on Friday on X.

Israel called on its fans on Sunday to avoid going to the Stade de France but around “a hundred Israeli supporters” will be present, according to a police source.

“I obviously tell them to come. All safety conditions are guaranteed in transport, at the entrance to the stadium, during the match,” declared police prefect Laurent Nuñez on France Info.

The head of Israeli diplomacy Gideon Saar asked the French authorities on Thursday evening to ensure “the security of Israeli supporters”.

In addition to the police, around 1,600 security agents will be mobilized at the Stade de France and the RAID, the elite unit of the national police, is engaged for the security of the Israel team, locked in a bubble since his arrival in France on Monday.

The authorities plan to secure places of worship and Jewish communities in Paris and nearby suburbs, according to a note from the police headquarters (PP) consulted by AFP.

The PP also asks the police for increased vigilance in places where “supporters (of the Israeli selection) would be likely to travel” at Porte Maillot, “kosher” restaurants on 16^e et 17^e arrondissement” of the capital as well as in Levallois-Perret.

The authorities also fear “groupings of young people from neighboring sensitive areas and the commission of acts of delinquency against the public and/or disturbances to public order”.

A stadium that will ring hollow?

The Saint-Denis enclosure (80,000 seats) will in any case sound particularly hollow since only 12,000 to 25,000 spectators are expected.

We are therefore heading towards the lowest attendance in the history of this stadium (36,842 spectators for France-New Zealand in 2003).

The stand of honor will, however, be well filled. In addition to Emmanuel Macron, his two predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, will also be present, as well as Prime Minister Michel Barnier, according to several media.

In the stadium, only French and Israeli flags will be allowed, and Palestinian banners, as well as “messages of a political nature”, will be banned, indicated Laurent Nuñez. Any other flag, even from French regions, will be banned, said a police source.