Paris on alert as Israel’s soccer team set to play after antisemitic attacks on Israeli fans in Amsterdam

Paris — Security forces were on high alert Thursday in Paris ahead of a soccer match between France’s national soccer team and the visiting Israeli side. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators held protests in the city Wednesday night, and there has been fear of a possible repeat of last week’s violence and antisemitic attacks against Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam.

Thousands of protesters marched Wednesday night to voice their opposition to Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, including 46-year-old Nacim Bordiah, who said France “should be boycotting the match.”

“We stopped Russia and South Africa from playing in the Olympics,” he said, referring to Russia’s ongoing ban from the global sports event due to the war in Ukraine and the South Africans being barred during the reign of its white apartheid regime. “Why not Israel now?”

The march was peaceful, but tension was running high on the heels of antisemitic violence last week on the streets of Amsterdam following a game between Israeli and Dutch teams.

Among the Israeli fans who came to support Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam, there were some who marched through the streets before the game chanting “death to Arabs” and tore down a Palestinian flag. But after the match, mobs cornered Israeli fans and bystanders, beating and kicking them and throwing one into a canal.

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema condemned the violence, saying in its wake that “Jewish Israeli supporters were hunted down and attacked via anti-Semitic calls on social media and on the streets.”

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof described the violence as a “terrible antisemitic attack” and declared himself “deeply ashamed” for the country’s capital city, while his Israeli and American counterparts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Biden, also voiced disgust and horror at the attacks targeting Jews.

Speaking Tuesday, Mayor Halsema said “a more complete picture” had emerged of the clashes that gripped Amsterdam last week, “and all sorts of terrible things happened,” but she stressed that it “in no way negates” that a call had been issued in her city for a “hunt for Jews.”

Clashes have persisted since then, despite a temporary ban on demonstrations in Amsterdam, with police breaking up one protest that sought to defy the ban as recently as Wednesday evening. A train in Amsterdam was also attacked, with one man shouting, “cancer Jew!”

In Paris, only about a quarter of the available tickets for Thursday night’s match had been sold, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Wednesday, and only about 150 Israel supporters were expected to attend.

But French authorities have warned “there’s no such thing as zero risk.”

They’ve deployed about 4,000 police and other security forces to patrol around the city and the Stade-de-France, the national stadium where the match was being held in a northern suburb of Paris. 

contributed to this report.