Paris to deploy 4,000 police officers for France-Israel clash

PARIS (AP):

Paris police said yesterday that 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for a France-Israel football match, to ensure security in and around the stadium and on public transportation a week after violence against Israeli fans in Amsterdam.

France and Israel are playing in a UEFA Nations League match on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron will attend, the Elysee presidential palace said.

Israel’s National Security Council, in a statement yesterday, warned citizens abroad to avoid sports and cultural events, specifically the match in Paris, and be careful of violent attacks “under the pretence of demonstrations”.

“There’s a context, tensions that make that match a high-risk event for us,” Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez said on French news broadcaster BFM TV, adding that the authorities “won’t tolerate” any violence.

Nuñez said that 2,500 police officers would be deployed around the Stade de France stadium, north of the French capital, in addition to 1,500 others in Paris and on public transportation.

“There will be an anti-terrorist security perimeter around the stadium,” Nuñez said. Security checks will be “reinforced”, he added, including with systematic pat-downs and bag searches.

Nuñez said that French organisers have been in contact with Israeli authorities and security forces in order to prepare for the match.

Israeli fans were assaulted last week, after a game in Amsterdam, by hordes of young people apparently riled up by calls on social media to target Jewish people, according to Dutch authorities.

Five people were treated at hospitals and dozens were arrested after the attacks, which were condemned as anti-Semitic by the authorities in Amsterdam, Israel and across Europe. Before the game, large crowds of supporters of the Israeli team could be seen on video chanting anti-Arab slogans as they headed to the stadium, escorted by police.

Yesterday, Dutch police detained several people for taking part in a demonstration in central Amsterdam that had been outlawed following the violence targeting Israeli fans, a local broadcaster reported.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau had confirmed on Friday that the France-Israel match would go ahead as planned.

“I think that for a symbolic reason we must not yield, we must not give up,” he said, noting that sports fans from around the world came together for the Paris Olympics this year to celebrate the “universal values” of sports.

Macron’s expected attendance is not only a show of support for the French team, but also aims at sending “a message of fraternity and solidarity following the intolerable anti-Semitic acts that followed the match in Amsterdam”, an official in Macron’s entourage said.