Paris to deploy 4,000 police officers to France-Israel UEFA match

Paris police have said that 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for a France v. Israel football match to ensure security in and around the stadium a week after violence between Israelis and pro-Palestine supporters erupted in Amsterdam.

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

“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 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.

In a statement, Israel’s National Security Council 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.”

Violence in Amsterdam

Video circulating online on Thursday ahead of an Ajax v. Maccabi Tel Aviv game showed a large crowd of Israeli fans chanting anti-Arab slurs on their way to the stadium.

Afterward, youths on scooters and on foot went in search of Israeli fans, punching and kicking them in attacks apparently inspired by calls on social media to target Jewish people.

Five people were treated at hospitals and dozens were arrested after the attacks, which were condemned as antisemitic by authorities in Amsterdam, Israel and across Europe.

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

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed 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.