For the authorities, the negative temperatures expected over a large part of France this weekend will not dampen the excitement of French supporters. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, thus specified, this Friday, the security device which will be put in place during the last two matches of the World Cup. That of the small final, first, which must determine on Saturday which of Morocco or Croatia will take third place on the podium. Then, that of the final between France and Argentina.
Alongside Christian Rodriguez, the director general of the national gendarmerie, Frédéric Veaux, the director general of the national police and Laurent Nuñez, the prefect of police of Paris, the Minister of the Interior announced the mobilization of 14,000 police and gendarmes throughout the territory for the Argentina-France match on Sunday. While for the small final, 12,840 members of the police will be mobilized.
A third of the workforce in Ile-de-France
In Ile-de-France, 3,600 police or gendarmes will be mobilized on Saturday, including 2,450 in Paris and in the inner suburbs, concentrated mainly around the Champs-Élysées. On Sunday, there will be nearly 4,050 in Ile-de-France, including 2,750 in the Paris area. “We will do checks on departure in stations in the inner suburbs and on the lines leading to the Champs-Elysées, said Laurent Nuñez. This is to prevent the mortars from arriving in Paris”. And to add: “We will stake out all of the Champs-Élysées to protect the businesses”. The Paris police chief also announced that the police will intervene as soon as facts are committed.
On Saturday, traffic will be maintained on the Champs-Elysées, but on Sunday the avenue will be completely pedestrianized. Peripheral exits will also be closed. In the event of a victory for France against Argentina, between 300,000 and 600,000 people are expected on the Champs-Elysées, specifies the police headquarters. Gérald Darmanin recalled that during the 2018 World Cup won by France, 600,000 people gathered there to celebrate the victory of the Blues.
The device is more important than that deployed for the semi-final won last Wednesday by France against Morocco. They were then 10,000 members of the police deployed on the ground, half of them in Ile-de-France.
Far-right groups particularly watched
In addition, the Minister of the Interior returned to the arrest and placement in police custody last Saturday in Paris of 40 people close to the ultra-right. “They had come to do the punch,” he said, pointing out that several were wanted by the services. He explained that he had met the evening before “the heads of the departments of the Ministry of the Interior – and a new meeting is to be held this morning (Friday) – to look in particular at the activities of these ultra-right groups during this weekend. -end of the World Cup to follow them and challenge them in the event of a meeting or league reunification […] because some have been dissolved, such as Génération Identitaire.
He felt that “their arrest upstream (like last Saturday) makes these small groups worrying that we must absolutely fight and makes it possible to document the proposals for the dissolution of associations in Paris, Lyon or Nice”. The minister argued that since he was in office in Beauvau “11 right-wing and ultra-right associations (had) been dissolved”.
After the France Morocco semi-final on Wednesday, 266 arrests took place across the country, including 167 in Paris. Among them, thirty-eight people belonging to the “extreme right movement” were arrested in the capital by the police.