France: Israeli Soccer Team Under Heavy Security for Match Against Japan

As we reported yesterday, the Israel Olympic soccer team has been met with ugly, racist jeers from pro-Palestinian fans at the Paris Olympics. Tonight, Israel is playing Japan in Nantes, a city known as an Antifa stronghold. Predictably, security is very tight. As I write, the match is set to begin in less than an hour. I pray there will be no violence.

 Here is an article from Le Figaro, which is translated by Fousesquawk. 

2024 Olympic games: At Nantes, maximum police security before Israel-Japan soccer match  on Tuesday

By Simon Cherner

Posted ten hours ago, updated 9 hours ago.

Caption: CRS (French National  Police Security) agents deployed at the Beaujoire Stadium in Nantes (Loire-Atlantic) during a League 1 match between FC Nantes and RC Strasbourg on 16 March 2024.

A significant security system should be deployed to ensure the safety of Israeli players on Tuesday and avoid any excess ahead of the sporting match. Several provocations have now already been spotted on social media.

The match promises to be the most guarded of the 8 soccer matches organized in Nantes in the framework of the 2024 Olympic games. Tuesday, July 30 at 9 pm, the match between Israel and Japan inside the Beaujoire Stadium should benefit from all the attention of police within the context marked by the controversies surrounding the arrival in France of the athletes from the Jewish state. The security should be even greater (since) Nantes, an Antifa bastion, had hosted several pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the start of the year.

“A substantial plan will be put in place, more significant than usual, conforming to the instructions from the Interior Ministry, which wants to create a 24-hour quasi-bubble around the Israeli delegation,” a police source confides to Figaro. Some threats and provocations have already been identified by intelligence (services) on social media. “There is as yet, no major alert, but we will breathe easier when the match is over,” it is further stated.

“Very sensitive” match

“The subject is very sensitive, (and) is under the purview of the prefecture,” a person close to the case at the Interdepartmental Directorate of the National Police confirms. “We will be very attentive in putting in place the instructions of the Interior Ministry, but with a deployment equivalent to other matches in Nantes,” the Loire-Atlantic Prefecture confirms to Figaro without further detail.

According to details communicated ahead of the Olympic games, about 215 police officers and 130 Gendarmes-excluding mobile units- are supposed to be mobilized for each match, in addition to more than 400 private security guards tasked with ensuring control of access to Beaujoire (Stadium). The demonstrations and “protest rallies” are also prohibited around the stadium from 26 July to 11 August. 

A half dozen demonstrations supporting Palestine and against the war in Gaza were organized in Nantes between October and December, then again in May and June, bringing together up to around 1,500 people with no major excesses. After the recent elections, the approach of the Olympic games in Paris has brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back into the news thanks to the (statements) of France Insoumise (Party) delegate, Thomas Portes. Hitting the streets during a-Palestinian rally, the elected official declared,” The Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris. The Israeli athletes are not welcome in the Olympic Games.” The statements shocked the government and brought scandal within the National Assembly, particularly the left.