Police in Paris are braced for potential violence before Thursday’s France-Israel football match, with police deploying one officer for every five ticket holders at the Stade de France.
The match has been designated “high risk” after the hooliganism and antisemitism in Amsterdam last week when the Israeli club team Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax.
Concerns over Thursday’s game were further raised after riot police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters on Wednesday night outside a gala event in Paris where funds were being raised for the Israeli military.
Israel’s controversial far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, had been due to speak but subsequently cancelled.
Police pushed against dozens of protesters waving Palestinian flags and lighting flares near Saint-Lazare station, with reports suggesting that teargas had been deployed as officers struggled to contain the crowds.
The Uefa Nations League tie between France and Israel, which is due to start at 8.45pm local time (7.45pm UK), is not expected to attract a large crowd, with fewer than 20,000 tickets sold for the 80,000 capacity stadium. Only about 150 Israeli fans are expected.
Despite the low attendance, about 4,000 police officers are expected on the streets along with another 1,500 on public transport routes.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration has been organised at Saint-Denis plaza at 6pm local time to protest against the staging of the match at a time of war in the Middle East.
The French police chief Laurent Nuñez said on Thursday that the match was “high risk” but that his officers would learn from the scenes in the Netherlands.
“What we learned is that we need to be present in the public space including far away from the stadium,” he said.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and his interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, are due to be in the Stade de France along with former presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.
France’s team coach, Didier Deschamps, said his players were aware of the tensions.
He said: “Obviously none of us within the team can be insensitive to such a heavy context. It impacts the amount of supporters present tomorrow and everything that goes with it.”
Amid international condemnation over the violence in Amsterdam last week, a report published by the city’s mayor Femke Halsema suggested the cause had been a “toxic cocktail of antisemitism, football hooliganism and anger over the war in Palestine and Israel and other parts of the Middle East”.
