Despite a brief incident in the stands, the football match between France and Israel took place peacefully on Thursday evening at the Stade de France, where an exceptional security system was put in place after last week’s violence on the sidelines of a Maccabi Tel-Aviv match in Amsterdam.
Fans of the visiting team are scattered throughout the stadium, with Israeli flags. Their national anthem triggered a few scattered whistles from part of the audience.
A brief crowd movement occurred in an upper stand during the first period, leading to the intervention of stewards to prevent Israeli supporters from mixing with French fans, noted an AFP journalist.
Questioned by AFP, the police headquarters did not wish to communicate any information, pending clarification on the circumstances, which were “still unclear”.
The sporting stakes of this meeting in the Paris suburbs counting for the League of Nations are largely eclipsed by the geopolitical context.
Emmanuel Macron, who attended the meeting, assured his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the “mobilization of France” for a “good progress of the match”.
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.
A total of 4,000 police officers and gendarmes were deployed around and, rarely, in the Saint-Denis stadium, as well as on public transport and throughout Paris.
Elisa, a 23-year-old from Lille who came with her family and who does not give her name, judges that the omnipresence of police around the stadium does not “bother”. It is even desirable according to her, “because there is a risk that violent people will disrupt the match”.
The Saint-Denis enclosure (80,000 seats) sounds a little hollow since only between 12,000 and 25,000 spectators are present, the lowest attendance in the history of this stadium for a football match (36,842 spectators for France-New Zealand in 2003).
Pedestrian traffic on the unusually deserted square in front of the enclosure was very fluid before the match, with very few French and Israeli flags visible.
“It spoils the party a little because there will only be 15,000 people instead of 80,000 and there won’t be much of an atmosphere,” regretted Matthieu Magron, supporter of the French team before making scan your ticket near the enclosure.
In the stadium, only French and Israeli flags are authorized, and Palestinian banners, as well as “messages of a political nature”, will be prohibited, warned Laurent Nuñez.
The first rows of seats are covered with a tarpaulin to prevent any intrusion and grilles have been erected above the advertising panels all around the pitch.
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.
“We are here for Israel”
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.
The French authorities have categorically ruled out giving up the match, or relocating it as Belgium did in September.
Israel, for its part, called on its fans on Sunday to avoid going to the Stade de France. And the head of Israeli diplomacy Gideon Saar asked the French authorities on Thursday evening to ensure “the security of Israeli supporters”.
Led by an association for the defense of the Jewish community, more than 600 people went to the stadium in around ten chartered buses and placed under high police security.
In addition to the police, around 1,600 security agents were mobilized at the Stade de France and the RAID ensured the security of the Israel team.
The authorities have planned 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 asked the police for increased vigilance in places where “supporters (of the Israeli selection) would be likely to travel”.
In Saint-Denis, Place du Front Populaire, several hundred people gathered Thursday evening to denounce the holding of this match.
