PARIS, July 24, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Around 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, 
as well as 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.

"Tonight at the Parc des Princes there will be a thousand police officers who 
will ensure that we are there for the sport," he added.

All Israeli athletes at the Paris Games, which start officially on Friday, 
will have round-the-clock personal security provided by elite French police, 
both inside the Olympic village and every time they leave the compound in 
northern Paris. 

A French police source told AFP that security forces were "expecting actions 
and disturbances around the stadium" on Wednesday and said it was possible 
that "people shout insults from the stands" or that there is "whistling and 
flags shown during the hymns, for example."

The game kicks off 9:00 pm (1900 GMT).

Europalestine, a French activist group behind recent protests, told the 
Guardian newspaper that it was planning a peaceful demonstration inside the 
stadium to protest the "genocide" in Gaza.
 
The head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach and French 
President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday rejected a Palestinian demand that 
Israel be barred from the Paris Games over the war in Gaza.

The Palestine Olympic Committee asked for a ban on Israel in a letter to the 
IOC, citing the bombings of the besieged Gaza Strip as a breach of the 
Olympic truce.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday at least 39,090 people 
have been killed in more than nine months of war between Israel and 
Palestinian militants.