Macron’s Beau Geste

President Macron attended Thursday night at Stade de France at northern Paris a soccer game between Israel and France which ended in a tie, 0-0. This was intended, per the president’s office, as “a message of fraternity and solidarity after the intolerable acts of antisemitism” that followed a match in Amsterdam one week earlier between Maccabi and the Dutch club Ajax.

One cannot deny that Mr. Macron was taking a forceful stand here. On many accounts. First and foremost, he was preventing by his mere attendance any temptation or inclination to cancel the game out of concern for public safety, thereby effectively resisting the Israel boycott advocated by the BDS movement. That was not lost to two former presidents, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, and to Prime Minister Michel Barnier, who resolved to attend the game as well.

Second, by pointing to the antisemitic and pogrom-like nature of last week’s situation in the Netherlands, the president is dismissing an alternative narrative put forward by the Green mayor of Amsterdam and her police chief — and taken up by ultra-left and pro-Palestinian activists in France — according to which it was the “provocative behavior” of “fascist” Israeli supporters of Maccabi that actually ignited “clashes” with the local Muslim community.

Third, the French president is signaling (on the ninth anniversary, almost to the day, of the massacre at the Bataclan theater by islamists in Paris) that he is backing Bruno Retailleau, the tough minister of the Interior appointed last September by Barnier.

Retailleau, whose priority is to restore law and order in the country against an interlocked and growing menace from narcotraffickers and Islamists, had last week a crude pro-Hamas banner removed from Parc des Princes, the second-largest stadium in Greater Paris and the “home” of Paris-Saint-Germain. He also reported to the prosecutor’s office a controversial X statement on the Amsterdam pogrom by Marie Mesmeur, an ultra-left member of parliament. According to him, Mme. Mesmeur was openly endorsing anti-Jewish violence.

Once the French government decides to act, it can prove to be particularly effective. France remains a centralized country, equipped with multiple security forces: the national police, the gendarmerie, riot control units, and intelligence services.

Some 4,000 uniformed police officers or gendarmes and 1,500 plainclothes police officers turned the stadium’s neighborhood into a high security enclave today. From 3 p.m., access to the entire surrounding area was restricted. Only 25,000 spectators were admitted, whereas the stadium capacity is 81,000. Every spectator had to show proof of identity and to undergo several security checks.

Additional security measures were taken to prevent incidents and violence in other parts of the Paris region (even if at least one pro-Palestinian demonstration had been allowed). The French police remember that on November 13, 2015, the Islamist terrorists attempted to carry out suicide attacks at the Stade de France while President François Hollande attended a match, at the very moment they were attacking the Bataclan and nearby streets.

While Mr. Macron should be commended for this showing, one wonders whether it represents the president’s definitive stance on the issue or is just another political pivot. Since October 7, 2023, after all, he has shifted repeatedly and dramatically between pro-Israeli and anti-Israeli positions, as though his philosophy of “at the same time” — a slightly utopian reconciliation of opposites — could still make sense in such circumstances.

While visiting Israel in 2023, Mr. Macron called for an international coalition against Hamas, patterned after the earlier international coalition against Isis. Yet he declined three weeks later, on November 12, to take part in a march against antisemitism in Paris, apparently out of concern for the “feelings” of the French Muslim community.

On February 7, he presided at an impressive ceremony at the Invalides in memory of the 42 French or French-Israeli citizens killed during the October 7 attacks in Israel, and in honor of three French nationals still held hostage in Gaza. During the ceremony, President Macron described the Hamas attacks as “the greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century”.

However, he grew subsequently critical of Israeli military operations in Gaza, even going so far as to ban Israeli companies from participating in international arms exhibitions in Paris in June and October — decisions that were later overturned by the courts – or to ban some arms exports to Israel.

Likewise, while holding a cabinet meeting on October 15, he thought he could say : “Mr. Netanyahu should not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN and therefore not disregard UN decisions.” The sentence seemed to imply that Israel’s very existence as a state and as a nation could be questioned.

Lastly, while visiting Lebanon on October 24, Mr. Macron observed, regarding the Israeli operations against Hezbollah, that “he was not sure whether sowing barbarity was the best way to defend civilization”.

The French president’s beau geste today at Stade de France may be an attempt to restore a measure of credibility after having gone in zigzag too often. It may also have to do with the very different mood that is emerging in international affairs in the wake of president Donald Trump’s second election.