While France is at the gates of a great moment of popular jubilation, the Ministry of the Interior has beefed up the security system throughout the weekend to guarantee the safety of the World Cup festivities.
In total, no less than 12,800 police and gendarmes will be mobilized, from Saturday, December 17, for the small final, where community issues around the Morocco team are still considered a risk factor.
The numbers in uniform will be hoisted to 14,000 men across the country on Sunday for the clash at the top between France and Argentina.
That is 4,000 more than last Saturday, when incidents resulted in 266 arrests, including 167 in the Paris area.
If France was already on the poster for the World Cup final in Russia in 2018, the equation is not at all the same as four years ago.
Indeed, the event had taken place more classically during the summer, during an exceptional weekend where 200 fanzones and football rallies all over the territory but also the Tour de France as well as the July 14 festivities mingled. under a mercury that was close to 30 degrees.
At the time under pressure, Gérard Collomb, Minister of the Interior, had promised a "
maximum level of mobilization of forces
" by beating the recall of 110,000 police and gendarmes.
No less than 600,000 people gathered on the Champs-Élysées to celebrate the victory against Croatia,
Aware that the popular fervor could be of the same magnitude on Sunday if the Blues hung a third star on their tunic, the Paris police headquarters increased the system to 2,750 police and gendarmes in the capital, with the action repression brigades violent motorized vehicles (Brav-M) as a spearhead to sanctuary the Champs-Élysées.
Last Saturday, 2,000 members of the police were mobilized intramurally.
Nearly 4,000 staff could also be hard at work in the departments of the inner suburbs.
Read alsoFrance-Morocco: overflows identified throughout the country after the match
On the sidelines of the presentation of the device, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin returned Friday to the arrest and placement in police custody last Saturday in Paris of 40 suspects close to the ultra-right.
“
They had come to do the punch
“, said the host of Beauvau, revealing that several of them were wanted by the services.
Friday morning, several executives from the Ministry of the Interior, in particular those in charge of intelligence, were to meet to sift through the actions that these small groups could plan during this weekend.
Objective ?
Follow and challenge the protagonists in the event of a meeting, or even league reunification because some have been dissolved, such as “Identity Generation”.
Beyond that, the anti-terrorist services will also be on the go, France having foiled 70 attacks since 2012, while the cauldron of the cities will be placed under surveillance.
Clearly, the police will be on all fronts.
But the danger could also come from completely unpredictable accidents, like the two "
crazy
" cars which had in turn darkened into the crowd of the Champs-Élysées (one dead and 160 injured), a certain evening of the July final 1998, when Zidane's portrait was projected on the Arc de Triomphe.
