An Olympic soccer match between Japan and Israel was scheduled today in the French city of Nantes, prompting a massive security presence to protect the Israeli players.

Based on this report, the match went off without a major hitch, and Israel lost to Japan.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Le Figaro:

2024 Olympic games: At Nantes, maximum police security before Israel-Japan soccer match on Tuesday

by Simon Cherner
July 30, 2024

A significant security system should be deployed to ensure the safety of Israeli players on Tuesday and avoid any excess ahead of the sporting match. Several provocations have now already been spotted on social media.

The match promises to be the most guarded of the eight soccer matches organized in Nantes in the framework of the 2024 Olympic games. Tuesday, July 30 at 9pm, the match between Israel and Japan inside the Beaujoire Stadium should benefit from all the attention of police within the context marked by the controversies surrounding the arrival in France of the athletes from the Jewish state. The security should be even greater since Nantes, an Antifa bastion, hosted several pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the beginning of the year.

“A substantial plan will be put in place, more significant than usual, conforming to the instructions from the Interior Ministry, which wants to create a 24-hour quasi-bubble around the Israeli delegation,” a police source confides to Figaro. Some threats and provocations have already been identified by intelligence services on social media. “There is as yet no major alert, but we will breathe easier when the match is over,” it is further stated.

“Very sensitive” match

“The subject is very sensitive, and is under the purview of the prefecture,” a person close to the case at the Interdepartmental Directorate of the National Police confirms. “We will be very attentive in putting in place the instructions of the Interior Ministry, but with a deployment equivalent to other matches in Nantes,” the Loire-Atlantic Prefecture confirms to Figaro without further detail.

According to details communicated ahead of the Olympic games, about 215 police officers and 130 Gendarmes — excluding mobile units — are supposed to be mobilized for each match, in addition to more than 400 private security guards tasked with ensuring control of access to Beaujoire Stadium. The demonstrations and “protest rallies” are also prohibited around the stadium from 26 July to 11 August.

A half-dozen demonstrations supporting Palestine and against the war in Gaza were organized in Nantes between October and December, then again in May and June, bringing together up to around 1,500 people with no major excesses. After the recent elections, the approach of the Olympic games in Paris has brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back into the news thanks to the statements of the France Insoumise [hard left party] delegate, Thomas Portes. Hitting the streets during a pro-Palestinian rally, the elected official declared, “The Israeli delegation is not welcome in Paris. The Israeli athletes are not welcome in the Olympic Games.” The statements shocked the government and brought scandal within the National Assembly, particularly the Left.