France: the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco and New Year’s Eve, the cocktail that worries the Interior Ministry

The meeting on Monday between the Minister of the Interior and the regional prefects had the air of a war council. While the New Year’s Eve festivities are traditionally marked by urban violence - burning of vehicles, use of fireworks against the security forces - the holding of the Africa Cup of Nations on Moroccan soil adds an additional degree of vigilance. The intelligence services are closely monitoring the impact of the matches on the atmosphere in the French streets, fearing that the sporting euphoria could get out of hand, as has already been observed in the past during major international competitions.

The concerns are not unfounded. On Sunday evening, Algeria’s qualification for the round of 16 gave a foretaste of what the French police could expect. Incidents, described as "quickly contained" by the authorities, broke out in several major cities such as Toulouse, Marseille, Lille and Roubaix. Faced with this observation, Laurent Nuñez was clear: if festive gatherings are tolerated and supervised, any violence against the agents or obstruction of traffic will be immediately sanctioned. "We do not expect more incidents than last year, but it is already much too much," the minister hammered, demanding immediate responsiveness from the troops.

To meet this dual challenge of New Year’s Eve and football, the resources are colossal. In Paris alone, 10,000 members of the internal security forces will be deployed, with particular attention paid to the Champs-Élysées to avoid crowd movements and counter any terrorist threat. In the provinces, the areas identified as sensitive, particularly in the Bas-Rhin or the Bouches-du-Rhône, are subject to increased surveillance. Upstream, the standard administrative measures have been reactivated, including the ban on retail fuel and pyrotechnic devices, in order to limit the arsenal available to potential troublemakers.