It will be an armored Paris, with the deployment of 5,000 agents, that will attend the historic final of the World Cup between France and Morocco tomorrow evening.
The challengers are a country of ancient immigration, present today not only with the heirs of the 2nd and 3rd generation of the diaspora but with solid and developing relations with France, of which it was a protectorate until the 1950s.
Morocco and France fans celebrated together on the Champs-Elysées for qualifying against Portugal and England on Sunday.
There were 20,000 people, nothing to do with the "million fans" who descended the famous avenue in 1998 for their first World Cup victory.
But even with 20,000 people united in an embrace with flags flying together, a hundred individuals ended up in custody in Paris alone, where riots and scuffles with the police now occur at all kinds of demonstrations, protests or party.
It is therefore normal that the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has announced the extraordinary mobilization of 5,000 policemen and gendarmes in the capital plus the same number in the rest of the territory.
The same minister also ruled out closing the Champs-Elysées to traffic, as requested by the mayor of the 8th arrondissement, preferring instead to lock down Paris with the closure of various accesses from the Péripherique, the capital's ring road.
The intention is to filter arrivals from the banlieue as much as possible, perhaps aided by a weather which - with the thermometer already below zero for a couple of days - predicts snow from tonight to all of tomorrow morning.
In particular, there are fears of infiltration among supporters of hooligans and black bloc, so much so that instructions have been given to search cellars and premises suspected of being able to hide explosives.
Darmanin, explaining the safety device, seemed instead much less concerned about the real hypothetical clash between fans, and recalled that "
If some tension begins to emerge on the front of public order, the political ones have already exploded for Emmanuel Macron's trip to Doha, where he will be in the stands to watch the semi-final and - as the Elysee underlined in defense of the president's intentions - "to support Les Bleus and Franco-Moroccan friendship".
"It will be an important moment for French sport - the Elysium said - it is important for the president to be there".
And Macron had announced his presence from the beginning of the World Cup if the national team reached the semi-final or the final.
However, the commitment had caused controversy due to criticism of the conditions in which migrant workers were kept in the emirate during the preparation for the World Cup, the impact of the stadiums with the
air conditioning on the environment and on the condition of women and minorities in Qatar.
Macron had therefore already invited "not to politicize" sport, adding that "these questions must be asked when the organization" of an event is attributed.
But the opposition has returned to office in the last few hours: "I think he's wrong," Manuel Bompard, the next coordinator of La France Insoumise (radical left), said yesterday.
"You can respect the enthusiasm of the people but it is not the same thing as giving your political support to Qatar by going there".
"The French national team - he continued - needs its fans to win, certainly not the presence of Emmanuel Macron in the stands. Instead, human rights in Qatar need the
Even the MEP and former candidate for the Elysée for the Greens, Yannick Jadot, has once again called for "a political boycott of the world cup", which he considers even more necessary after the "Qatargate" which hit the European Parliament.