Fighting mars France-Israel football match (VIDEOS)

French and Israeli football fans clashed in the stands as their countries played a Nations League match at the Stade de France on Thursday. French fans booed the Israeli national anthem before the game, while many boycotted it altogether over the war in Gaza.

Earlier this week, the French authorities announced that they would beef up security after earlier clashes between Israeli and local fans in Amsterdam led to multiple injuries.

Before kickoff, as the Israeli team was announced, the national anthem was booed and whistled at from the stands, French channel BFMTV wrote on Thursday. A few minutes later, a fight broke out on the north side of the stadium, after which stewards stepped in and set up a safety cordon. Around 50 people were involved, according to the channel. 

In videos shared on social media purporting to show the violence, a crowd of football fans with Israeli flags appears to chase a man in the stands and kick him as he goes down.

It was not immediately clear what sparked the violence.

In another video, the largely empty stands of the Stade de France are seen during the match. 

Amid the boycott, only 16,611 people attended the Nations League match in the Stade de France which has a capacity of 80,000, according to Reuters. 

The match also sparked a large pro-Palestinian protest in Paris, where demonstrators were seen holding banners reading “We do not play with genocide.” Some could be heard chanting “Viva, viva Palestina,” while others called on the French government to end its military and economic partnership with Israel.

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