Investigation opened after anti-Semitic gestures and banner displayed during Israel-Paraguay football match

The Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games “firmly condemns these actions” and has filed a complaint.

Mimicked anti-Semitic gestures. An investigation into aggravated incitement to racial hatred has been opened, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Sunday, July 28, following the behavior of people present on Saturday at the Parc des Princes for the Israel-Paraguay football match, as part of the Olympic Games. This group of around ten people, “dressed in black, masked and carrying Palestinian flags”, have also deployed “a banner reading ‘Genocide Olympics'”, the prosecution said.

Stewards immediately intervened to remove the two white cloths on which the inscription appeared in large black letters. From the stands below, Israel supporters chanted “Free the hostages“, to which the ultra group responded “Free Gaza”. According to an AFP journalist present at the match, won by Paraguay (4-2), the Israeli anthem was also lightly whistled.

The Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJOP) has filed a complaint, according to the public prosecutor’s office, confirming information from the Parisian. Organizers “strongly condemn these actions”, they told AFP, indicating that they were holding “at the disposal of the authorities to collaborate in the investigation.” The investigations are entrusted to the “Stade” group of the Paris metropolitan area’s local security department.

The fifty or so ultras present in the Auteuil stand, their faces hidden behind surgical masks or scarves, chanted slogans during part of the first half in reference to the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. These slogans, thrown with outstretched fists towards a stand below where Israeli flags were flying, said in particulart “Israel murderer”, “We are all children of Gaza”. Slogans immediately drowned out by the whistles of part of the audience. “Gaza Gaza, we do not forget” Or “Israel is murdering the children of Palestine” were also launched.