By Gabriel Stargardter
PARIS (Reuters) – French authorities have stepped up security in Paris ahead of a France-Israel soccer match on Thursday, hoping to avoid a repeat of violent clashes between locals and Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam last week.
The Nations League match at the Stade de France comes at a fraught moment, with diplomatic relations between French President Emmanuel Macron and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu strained by Israel’s war in Gaza.
Some 4,000 police will secure the event, deployed in the stadium, outside the ground and on public transport, the Paris police force said.
“It’s an exceptional measure, three to four times greater than what we usually mobilize,” Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told RTL radio on Wednesday.
Only French and Israel flags would be allowed inside the stadium, he added.
Macron will attend the game in a show of solidarity, while Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said after the Amsterdam clashes there was never any question the game would go ahead as planned.
Still, turnout will likely be low, with just 20,000 fans expected in the 80,000 capacity stadium north of Paris.
French supporters’ group Les Irreductibles Français conducted a survey among its members, which showed 15% would boycott the match due to the Israel-Gaza war, while around 30% cited “security risks.”
Passions over Israel’s conduct in Gaza run high in France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities. Reports of anti-Semitic acts increased by an “unprecedented” 284% in 2023, France’s Human rights commission said in June, while anti-Muslim acts rose around a third.
Israeli soccer fans and locals clashed in Amsterdam last week, with at least five Israelis injured after Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Europa League game at Ajax.
Aurélien Bernheïm, co-founder of the Movement for French Jews, a right-wing Zionist youth group, said around 30 of his organisation’s members would attend the match.
“But I wont hide it, many of these young people were scared to go as they had in their heads these appalling images from Amsterdam,” he said.
Walid Attalah, president of the Associations of Palestinians in Ile de France, said the match should have been cancelled.
“Russia has been banned because there was the occupation of Ukraine, it was illegal, there were war crimes, but Israel is never sanctioned for what it does,” he said.
Some supporters, however, shrugged off concerns.
“I’m not worried,” said Yannick Vanhee, who leads a French supporters association in Dunkirk. “Authorities have been putting more and more security into these events.”
(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; additional reporting by Layli Foroudi; editing by Christina Fincher)
