Security reinforced at PSG v Barcelona game after IS ‘threat’

Security will be "considerably reinforced" at Wednesday's Champions League match in the French capital between Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona after a "threat" from the Islamic State group, the interior minister said.

Published: 9 April 2024 14:38 CEST

Security reinforced at PSG v Barcelona game after IS 'threat'

Police officers stand outside French football club Paris Saint-Germain's (PSG) Parc des Princes stadium in Paris on August 10, 2021 (Photo by Zakaria ABDELKAFI / AFP)

Gerald Darmanin said the jihadist group had threatened all the quarter-final matches on Tuesday and Wednesday, not just PSG’s first leg clash with Barcelona at the Parc des Princes.

Darmanin said there had been “a clear threat publicly expressed by the Islamic State”.

“The police, whom I spoke to very early this morning, have considerably reinforced the security measures,” the minister told reporters.

A source close to the issue told AFP: “IS has threatened the Champions League quarter-finals, not specifically in France, through one of its communication outlets.”

In the matches on Tuesday, Arsenal take on Bayern Munich in London and Real Madrid host reigning European champions Manchester City.

In Wednesday’s other game, Atletico Madrid face Borussia Dortmund in the Spanish capital.

European football’s governing body UEFA said all the matches would go ahead despite the threat.

“UEFA is aware of alleged terrorist threats made towards this week’s UEFA Champions League matches and is closely liaising with the authorities at the respective venues,” the statement said.

“All matches are planned to go ahead as scheduled with appropriate security arrangements in place.”

PSG coach Luis Enrique said in his pre-match news conference: “Who is not worried or concerned by terrorist threats?

“I hope it is a thing we can control and that they are just threats and that nothing will happen.”

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Police intervened as dozens of students gathered on a central Paris campus of the prestigious Sciences Po university on Wednesday evening, management said.

“After discussions with management, most of them agreed to leave the premises,” university officials said in a statement to AFP, saying the protest was adding to “tensions” at the university.

But “a small group of students” refused to leave and “it was decided that the police would evacuate the site,” the statement added.

Sciences Po said it regretted that “numerous attempts” to have the students leave the premises peacefully had led nowhere.

According to the police préfecture, students had set up around 10 tents.

When members of law enforcement arrived, “50 students left on their own, 70 were evacuated calmly from 0.20am” and the police “left at 1.30am, with no incidents to report,” the police said.

The protesters demanded that Sciences Po “cut its ties with universities and companies that are complicit in the genocide in Gaza” and “end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus,” according to witnesses.

The protest was organised by the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po.

In a statement on Thursday, the group said its activists had been “carried out of the school by more than fifty members of the security forces,” adding that “around a hundred” police officers were “also waiting for them outside”.

Sciences Po management “stubbornly refuses to engage in genuine dialogue,” the group said.

The organisers have called for “a clear condemnation of Israel’s actions by Sciences Po” and a commemorative event “in memory of the innocent people killed by Israel,” among other demands.

Separately, the Student Union of Sciences Po Paris said the decision by university officials to call in the police was “both shocking and deeply worrying” and reflected “an unprecedented authoritarian turn”.

Many top US universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks, with some students furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.

France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community.

The war in Gaza began with an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7th that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.