Police make 2 arrests after brief fan-fight at high-security France-Israel soccer match

Eighty per cent of those here initially hesitated to come,

Mr Bensimon was quoted as saying by the Guardian, as he referred to safety concerns heightened by recent violent episodes in Amsterdam

We don’t play with genocide,

one banner read, in reference to the Gaza war

This is purely a scandal. Let’s imagine a France-Russia match. Would Emmanuel Macron have honoured this encounter with his presence? Obviously not. While in both cases there are two aggressor countries,

he said

We are seeing a pogrom against Jews and Israelis unfold in Amsterdam,

Danon said

The hysterical and hyperbolic demonization of Israel has led to a global outbreak of antisemitic vitriol, vandalism, and violence,

he wrote

The mob who targeted those innocent Israelis has proudly shared their [violent] acts."

In the United States, the Israeli Embassy to the U.S. posted a graphic video of the violence, saying

Those inciting antisemitism now have the blood of a 21st-century pogrom on their hands,

he wrote

We need to show a sort of 'anti-Amsterdam' this evening,

said Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF).

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

What we learned is that we need to be present in the public space including far away from the stadium,

he said

Umarcaliph

We won’t stop protesting,

said one demonstrator, Omar, 30, who declined to provide his last name

There's a context, tensions that make that match a high-risk event for us,

Nunez told French news broadcaster BFM TV

Laurent Nuñezparis police chief

It is a high-risk match [because of] an extremely tense geopolitical context,

Nuñez said

We do not want our head of state honoring a country that commits genocide,

said LFI deputy David Guiraud

France does not give way to those who sow hatred,

he said

Imagine if an association were hosting a gala for Hezbollah or Hamas. There’s no way police would allow that,

said Melkir Saib, a 30-year-old protester

We will not allow any attempt to disturb public order,

he added

It is out of the question that we take the risk of seeing a repeat of the dramatic events, of the manhunt, that we saw in Amsterdam,

Retailleau said,

We’ve tried to prepare for this match as normally as possible. But obviously none of us within the team can be insensitive to such a heavy context,

France coach Didier Deschamps said Wednesday

It's a sad date for us given what happened in 2015,

Deschamps said