the president of Crif is “relieved” that there was no “serious incident”

After the meeting under high surveillance between France and Israel on Thursday November 14 at the Stade de France, Crif President Yonathan Arfi said he was “relieved”.

He said he was “worried”. Invited on the LCI set this Friday, November 15, the day after the closely monitored France-Israel match Thursday evening at the Stade de France, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (Crif) Yonathan Arfi is delighted that he will not there was no “serious incident”.

“There was this scuffle in the tenth minute, but it remained isolated, he emphasizes. “It’s a victory from that point of view.”

However, the relief is relative for Yonathan Arfi: “realize where we are! We are now considering the fact that nothing is happening as a Republican victory. It says a lot about the state of tension in which we are today, of the apprehension that the Jews have on the security level in relation to anti-Semitism.

Thursday, a few hours before the France-Israel match, the President of Crif said on RTL that he was “worried and vigilant”, hoping that this meeting would be “the anti-Amsterdam”, in reference to the serious incidents following the Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel-Aviv, on the night of November 7 to 8 in the Netherlands.

29 people in police custody

Around thirty people were placed in police custody on the sidelines of the France-Israel meeting, including two for violence that occurred during the match, AFP learned this Friday from the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office (Seine-Saint-Denis).

The match, which took place under very high security (4,000 police and gendarmes deployed) and in a stadium with more than sparse aisles, went “very well from a security point of view”, for its part declared on Friday Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez on France 2, reporting two arrests after an incident in the stands between supporters of the two teams.

“We have a total of 29 people in police custody, including the two for acts of violence between supporters,” the Bobigny prosecutor’s office told AFP.

Regarding the incident in the stands, “there was a fight that broke out, which was immediately contained by the stewards,” explained Laurent Nuñez. One person was immediately arrested and then a second after the match, thanks to surveillance videos, continued the police prefect without specifying whether they were supporters of the French or Israeli team.

A little over 16,600 spectators attended the match, the lowest attendance in history for a French team match at the Stade de France, an 80,000-seat venue.