French authorities are wary of a high-risk soccer match where France hosts Israel on Thursday at the Stade de France, shortly after anti-Semitic acts following another match in Amsterdam.
If the largest French stadium can accommodate up to 80,000 spectators, only 15,000 tickets were sold for this League of Nations match, according to Benjamin Petrover, Paris correspondent for i24 News.
Nearly 4,000 police officers are assigned around the Stade de France to ensure the safety of people who go there, in addition to 1,600 security guards who must protect the entrances and exits of the building.
The elite RAID unit was called upon to protect the Israeli team, which also held all its training in a secret location so as not to be disrupted.
If many demanded the cancellation of the match, the French Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, assured a few days ago that it was out of the question to hold a match behind closed doors, to move it or to cancel it. .
“No question of submitting. France is not backing down. The Republic does not submit, particularly to sowers of hatred,” he wrote in publication X on Sunday.
Around ten buses were assigned to ensure safe transportation for fans of both teams.
“The supporters who are going to go to the Stade de France are very well supervised and this allows France to show that it is capable of maintaining this match,” said journalist Benjamin Petrover, who was on board one of these buses, among supporters of both countries.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were in the streets shortly before the match’s kickoff, scheduled for 2:45 p.m. Quebec time, but some distance from the stadium.
President Emmanuel Macron, but also his predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, are due to attend the match, as is Prime Minister Michel Barnier.
Recall that a few days ago, clashes broke out in Amsterdam following a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel-Aviv after several incidents on the sidelines of the soccer match.
