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1,000 French police to secure Israel-Mali Olympics football game
About 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 team at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris and the Ukraine-Iraq match in the southeastern city of Lyon have been identified by French security forces as high-risk.
“All the competitions have a security plan, but it’s true that these two matches, and particularly the match at the Parc des Princes, will have security, an anti-terror perimeter,” Darmanin told BFM television and RMC radio.
The measures come amid calls to bar Israel from the Olympics. Campaigners say Israel should be banned from the games just like Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.
A left-wing French MP on Sunday said Israeli athletes were not welcome at the Paris Games for the devastating war on Gaza. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched war on Gaza in October.
French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected demands to exclude Israel from the Olympics.
Paris protesters call for Israel’s Olympic expulsion
Far-left French lawmakers have urged protests against Israel’s participation in the Games. At a small rally in Paris late on Tuesday, pro-Palestinian protesters chanted, “Free, free Palestine.”
“Israel should be expelled because it is systematically violating rights and international laws,” demonstrator Elena Guerra said.
An anti-Israel protest in front of the Olympic Committee in Paris last month
Pro-Palestinian protests outside UK Foreign Office
Workers and trade unionists from Workers for a Free Palestine blockaded the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in central London.
They called on Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the new Labour government to meet their own demands on the previous government by immediately suspending the sale of arms to Israel.
Demonstrators also demanded the withdrawal of a legal bid to block the International Criminal Court from issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Protesters demanded the new government revoke arms export licences and also to publish the legal advice the previous government used to reach its position
Britain supplied 42 million pounds ($53m) of arms to Israel in 2022
