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00:00Security is said to be tight in the French capital ahead of a France-Israel Nations League
00:04match at the Stade de France.
00:05Four thousand police officers will be deployed around the Stade de France, with another one
00:10and a half thousand on the city's public transport.
00:15Tensions running high following last week's football match in Amsterdam when violence
00:19broke out between Israeli fans and pro-Palestinian supporters.
00:25For more on this story, we can bring in Paul Smith, Associate Professor in French and
00:29Francophone Studies at the University of Nottingham.
00:32Thank you so much for joining us here on France 24.
00:35Clearly a lot of security ahead of this highly anticipated match tonight.
00:40Who's attending?
00:42Well, I suspect there won't be many Israeli supporters, but certainly there will be,
00:46we're talking about 25,000 tickets in a very large stadium.
00:51But amongst the more prominent supporters or the most prominent attendees will be
00:55Professor Macron, sorry, President Macron, as well as the Prime Minister and Macron's
01:01immediate predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande are due to be attending
01:06the match as well.
01:08OK, so three French presidents, two former, one current are due to attend this match.
01:13And this match, of course, comes a day after a controversial gala was held in the French
01:18capital where Israel's far-right finance minister was invited.
01:21Clearly, a lot of people in this city frustrated that that gala was allowed to take place.
01:28Yes, it's the match, the gala, all taking place against the backdrop, obviously, of
01:33what's going on in Gaza, but also that, of course, is generating tensions within France.
01:39Yesterday was also the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 2015.
01:44And more broadly speaking, a lot of tension, particularly amongst French Jews about their
01:50position in French society, a rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks in France.
01:56So a very tense situation, generally speaking, in France for French Jews, but also for French
02:03Muslims as well, that this is a very difficult political and social backdrop that the match
02:10is taking place against.
02:13Paul Smith, France has a sizable Jewish population, a sizable Muslim population as well.
02:19Is that why Paris's messaging, its handling on how to support this conflict, who to support
02:27in this conflict?
02:27Is that what's complicated Paris's position?
02:31Yes, I think that's part of it.
02:33I mean, to go back to where we are in the more general situation, we've seen some shifts
02:38in French politics over the last few years and more generally a sense of anxiety, particularly
02:45amongst French Jews, even before the outbreak of the violence in Gaza, that there's a sense
02:52of, up to a certain point, alienation in France.
02:56Very large numbers of French Jews taking Aliyah, the call to return to Israel, 6,000 every year
03:03over the last 10 years, a much higher figure than we ever saw before.
03:07And that kind of anxiety is very clearly there, but also, of course, a reconfiguration
03:15as well in French politics where the French far right, we were talking earlier on about
03:19Marine Le Pen, how they are now posing as the champions of protecting French Jews from
03:27anti-Semitism, in particular a number of high profile French Jewish figures in the last
03:34elections saying that they would support the Rassemblement Nationale these days.
03:39So there's a ferment there that's very much present.
03:45You mentioned a large French Jewish population, but also something like, well, we don't know
03:50the exact figures, but six million people in France who are Muslims.
03:56So that's a very big population.
03:57So that's a potential source of ferment.
04:02So that's not to say, by the way, that six million French Muslims are fermenting are
04:08difficult, not at all.
04:09But it is the situation that the government has to respond to.
04:14Indeed.
04:14And we've also seen, it's not just in France where far right figures have suddenly become
04:19backers of Israel, but this is a Europe-wide phenomenon, isn't it?
04:25Yes, it is.
04:26Yes.
04:26And the support for Israel is the kind of the, I see it as part of the sort of knock
04:32on effect of the impact of the Great Replacement Theory that a lot of far right wing leaders
04:39are falling in with.
04:41And also even figures from the more traditional right, particularly in France, but elsewhere,
04:46also kind of stating this idea that European civilization has this, they use the expression
04:53Judeo-Christian foundation.
04:56And that's, you know, that's now becoming a very commonplace language for identifying
05:03with one particular group within this situation rather than another.
05:09And that's emerging more and more.
05:13Paul Smith, thank you so much for joining us on the program today.