The Israeli delegation to the Paris Olympics “will be subject to reinforced security,’ French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced.
“A fortnight ago, I proposed to the president of the Republic that the Israeli delegation (Olympic and Paralympic) be fully protected by the French police around the clock,” Darmanin told France 2 television channel news.
“We took this decision because we know that Israeli athletes, particularly since the [1972] Munich Games, have been targeted by attacks.’’
The minister’s statement should be seen in the context of the remarks made by Thomas Portes, an MP for the far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, who declared at a rally in support of the Palestinian people that “Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics.”
Darmanin said that Portes was “putting a target on the back” of Israeli athletes, using deplorable “antisemitic overtones. He is not attacking the North Korean or Iranian delegation, he is knowingly attacking the Israeli delegation because they are Jewish.
“I want to express my disgust at that. I want to assure the Israeli athletes of our full protection, like all athletes, but particularly them, also welcoming them,’’ continued Darmanin.
The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) will also help secure the Israel representatives at the Olympics.
Portes’s remarks sparked a wave of indignation. On X, Yonathan Arfi, president of Crif, the umbrella representative group for Jewish institutions in France, said that “since October 7, Thomas Portes has been legitimizing Hamas.”
The minister also said that the far-left MP “put a target on the backs of Israeli athletes, who are already the most threatened at the Olympic Games,” recalling that at the 1972 Munich Olympics, 11 Israelis had “been murdered by Palestinian terrorists.”
The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, called for the closure of La France Insoumise. “I request that dissolution proceedings be initiated against LFI and, in the meantime, the withdrawal of all public aid for this party and its members, who have definitively banished themselves from the nation,” he wrote on X.
A full-scale security test will take place at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
At 9 p.m., a soccer match between the men’s teams of Israel and Mali will kick off. The French Ministry of the Interior has designated the match one of the most sensitive moments of the games in terms of security.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will attend the opening Olympic ceremony. He will participate on Wednesday in a memorial commemoration marking 52 years since Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli sportsmen at Munich. He will later watch Israel’s soccer team play against Mali at Parc des Princes.
Originally published by European Jewish Press.
