Emmanuel Macron has vowed that France will not give in to antisemitism, as the country’s men’s football team faced Israel at the Stade de France on a tense night in Paris.
The match was designated as high risk after the hooliganism and antisemitism in Amsterdam last week when the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax.
The French president and his interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, are due to be at the Stade de France along with the former presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, in a show of solidarity with victims of antisemitism.
Speaking shortly before kick-off, Macron told the French TV channel BFMTV: “We will not give in to antisemitism anywhere and violence, including in the French Republic, will never prevail, nor will intimidation.”
The Uefa Nations League match between France and Israel, which was due to start at 8.45pm local time (7.45pm UK), was not expected to attract a large crowd, with fewer than 20,000 tickets sold for the 80,000-capacity stadium.
A small contingent of Israel fans were expected. Patrick Bensimon, a co-founder of the NGO Diaspora Defense Forces, said he had organised for 600 people to be transported to the stadium in chartered buses under police escort.
He said: “Eighty per cent of the people who are here did not want to go to the Stade de France. Some were afraid, especially following the events in Amsterdam.”
One Israel fan draped in the Israeli flag told reporters outside the stadium: “We want to show that we are not afraid of anyone, except God.”
His friend said “we shouldn’t mix sport and politics” and that they hoped “there won’t be any scuffles outside the stadium”.
Despite the low attendance, about 4,000 police officers were on the streets around the stadium along with 1,600 security personnel.
Israel’s government had instructed its nationals to avoid the game amid heightened tensions.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration on Thursday night attracted a crowd of a few hundred people outside the Front Populaire metro station in Saint-Denis, about a mile from the stadium.
Éric Coquerel, an MP for Seine-Saint-Denis and a member of the leftwing La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, said: “We are living in a schizophrenic moment. On the one hand, international institutions recognise the existence of a genocide in Gaza. On the other, we have a French government that reluctantly agrees to call for a ceasefire.
“This match, which everyone knows is second rate, is attended by President Macron, the prime minister, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande. How do you expect Benjamin Netanyahu to hear any message other than: ‘You can continue to raze Gaza?’ France is looking the other way.
“This is purely a scandal. Let’s imagine a France-Russia match. Would Emmanuel Macron have honoured this encounter with his presence? Obviously not. While in both cases there are two aggressor countries.”
The French police chief Laurent Nuñez described the match as high risk and said his officers would learn from the scenes in the Netherlands. “What we learned from Amsterdam is that we need to be present in the public space including far away from the stadium,” he said.
Ticket sales ended at 11am on Thursday and ticket holders were warned they would not be allowed to bring any bags into the stadium. A wide security perimeter was enforced around the venue.
Only the French and Israeli national flags were being allowed into the ground and fans were thoroughly searched as they went through checkpoints outside the stadium in the north of Paris.
The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said he had asked his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, to ensure the safety of those Israeli supporters who did attend. “The security of Israeli fans must be ensured,” Saar said.
Concerns of trouble had been 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, and reports suggested teargas had been deployed as officers struggled to contain the crowds.
The France coach, Didier Deschamps, said his players were aware of the tensions. “Obviously none of us within the team can be insensitive to such a heavy context,” he said. “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”.
