Fans brawled in Paris at the Nations League fifth-round football match between France and Israel on Thursday, French media reported.
When Israel’s line-up was announced and the Israeli anthem was played, whistles blew from the stands. A few minutes later, fighting broke out in the north stand of France fans at the start of the match. Several dozen people took part in the brawl, some of whom were carrying Israeli flags. According to RMC Sport, 50 fans were involved in the scuffle. Police and stadium staff intervened and order was restored.
The disturbance, according to the radio station, lasted a few minutes, then calm returned. The match ended with the score 0:0.
Before the match, the Stade de France pitch was fenced off with bars with spikes on top. This was done to prevent any fans from entering the pitch. The first rows in the stands were covered with tarpaulins.
Before the game, left-wing politicians and activists organised a demonstration in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis to protest the football match.
The meeting set a record low attendance for the French national team with only 16,611 spectators, including French President Emmanuel Macron.
Israeli authorities advised their citizens to refrain from attending the match with France and not to attend sporting and cultural events in the week following the attacks on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam.
On the night of November 8, Israeli citizens who had come to support Maccabi football club for a Europa League match against local side Ajax were attacked in Amsterdam. Men armed with edged weapons threw people into canals and took away their passports. The riots began after a group of unidentified men tore down Palestinian flags on the streets of Amsterdam and chanted “Damn you, Palestine!” In the morning, the Israel Defence Forces announced the emergency evacuation of the country’s citizens from the Netherlands.
