A high-security and almost empty Nations League match between France and Israel still saw clashes between supporters in the stands at the Stade de France.
After incidents involving supporters at Ajax vs Maccabi Tel Aviv last Thursday in the Europa League, security was upped for the League A clash.
This resulted in just 20,000 supporters at the 80,000-capacity stadium in Paris – the lowest attendance it’s ever recorded for a football match.
RMC Sport claim that a massive 4,000 police were employed for the fixture which saw whistling of the Israeli national anthem before kick-off.
Then, minutes after the first whistle was blown, fights broke out in the stadium’s north curve with around 50 individuals involved.
Stewards intervened to create a cordon and things were calmed down after around two minutes.
Several Israel and Palestine flags could be seen throughout the game, while there so far haven’t been any injuries reported from the fighting.
The minister of the interior, Bruno Retailleau, and Paris police chief, Laurent Nunez were both in attendance, with the latter reassuring attendees in the days leading up to the match.
“I want to reassure those who are listening to us and at the same time send a message of firmness,” he said.
“We will have the means to be extremely responsive to prevent any disturbance of public order, whether during the match, in the vicinity of the match or on the spectators’ path. We will not tolerate any excesses.
“We are able to secure the Stade de France, which hosted the Olympic Games. We have learned the lessons of what happened for the Champions League final in May 2022 [between Liverpool and Real Madrid].”
French president Emmanuel Macron also attended the match, and said beforehand: “France is organising a sporting, cultural, intellectual event that it intends to organise and that it wants to organise.
“We are doing this by protecting artists, athletes, intellectuals, by allowing everyone to experience these events.
“We will not give in to this bad wind of anti-Semitism that is blowing across the world.”
On the pitch, the match finished 0-0 with already-qualified France facing Italy needing a win and a three-goal swing to top the group.
