Around 1,000 French police officers will be on duty on Wednesday to protect Israel’s football match against Mali at the Paris Olympics, where protests are also expected, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. The game involving the Israeli national team at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, as well as the Ukraine-Iraq game in the southeastern city of Lyon, were identified by French security forces as high risk. “All competitions have a security plan, but it is true that these two games, and particularly the game at Parc des Princes, will have security, an anti-terrorism perimeter,” Darmanin told BFM television and RMC radio.
“Tonight at the Parc des Princes there will be a thousand police officers who will ensure that we are there for the sport,” he added.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will be present at the match.
All Israeli athletes at the Paris Games, which officially begin on Friday, will have 24-hour personal security provided by elite French police, both inside the Olympic Village and whenever they leave the complex in northern Paris.
A French police source told AFP that security forces “expect actions and disturbances around the stadium” on Wednesday and said it was possible that “people would shout insults from the stands” or that there would be “whistles and flags shown during the hymns, for example.” .”
The game starts at 9pm (7pm GMT).
Europalestine, a French activist group behind the recent protests, told the Guardian newspaper it was planning a peaceful demonstration inside the stadium to protest the “genocide” in Gaza.
“We do not take (the threat) lightly, we are on high alert and all athletes have been informed of the situation,” said Israeli government spokesman David Mencer.
“Our duty to protect our athletes, in cooperation with the French authorities, is of the utmost importance,” he added.
The head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, and French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday rejected the Palestinian demand that Israel be excluded from the Paris Games because of the war in Gaza.
The Palestinian Olympic Committee called for Israel’s ban in a letter to the IOC, citing bombings of the besieged Gaza Strip as a violation of the Olympic truce.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said on Tuesday that at least 39,090 people have been killed in more than nine months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
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