David Montagné with AFP 12:15 p.m., December 16, 2022

14,000 police and gendarmes will be mobilized in France on Sunday to ensure the security of the festivities surrounding the 2022 World Cup final, including 2,750 in the capital, law enforcement officials announced.

If France wins, the police headquarters expects to see 300,000 to 600,000 people pouring onto the Champs-Elysées.

Some 12,800 police and gendarmes will be mobilized on Saturday in France to ensure the security of the festivities surrounding the small final of the World Cup and 14,000 on Sunday for the final, law enforcement officials announced on Friday in Paris.

The device, presented to the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin at the Paris police headquarters, is larger than that deployed Wednesday for the semi-final won by France against Morocco (10,000 members of the police).

Saturday, as during the semi-final, the Champs-Elysées will remain open to traffic.

On the other hand, Sunday for the final, they will be completely pedestrianized.

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600,000 people gathered on the Champs in 2018

Gérald Darmanin recalled that during the 2018 World Cup, won by France, 600,000 people gathered on the Champs to celebrate the victory.

For the final on Sunday, the Paris police headquarters has planned 2,750 police and gendarmes in the capital.

They were 2,000 last Wednesday.

The Minister of the Interior returned to the arrest and placement in police custody last Wednesday in Paris of 40 people close to the ultra-right.

"They had come to do the punch," he said, pointing out that several were wanted by the services.

He explained that he had met the evening before "the heads of the departments of the Ministry of the Interior - and a new meeting is to be held this morning (Friday) - to look in particular at the activities of these ultra-right groups during this weekend. end of the World Cup to follow them and challenge them in the event of a meeting or reunification of the league (...) because some have been dissolved, such as Generation Identity".

"It's a few dozen people but these people are dangerous and will be followed by the Ministry of the Interior," he continued.

He felt that "their arrest upstream (like last Wednesday) makes these small groups worrying that we must absolutely fight and makes it possible to document the proposals for the dissolution of associations in Paris, Lyon or Nice".

The minister argued that since he was in office in Beauvau "11 right-wing and ultra-right associations (had) been dissolved".