On Nov. 13, 2024, protests broke out in Paris over a gala organised by a far-right group that said it wanted to raise funds for Israeli armed forces and mobilise French-speaking Zionist supporters. The event, called Israel is Forever, became a lightning rod because of the guest list, the political symbolism and the timing, coming just as tensions over the Middle East were already shaping public debate in France.
The planned guest who drew the most attention was Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hard-line settler figure who had previously sparked controversy with remarks about the West Bank. Although his office later said he would not travel to Paris, the invitation itself was enough to trigger anger from local associations, unions and left-wing parties. French authorities said the gathering posed no major threat to public order, but that did not stop critics from treating it as an unacceptable fundraising event for the Israeli military.
Several hundred demonstrators marched through central Paris and denounced the gala as hateful and shameful. The march was mostly peaceful, yet some protesters broke windows at a McDonald's along the route, showing how quickly a political protest can slip from symbolism into vandalism. A separate crowd, including Jewish leftist organisations opposed to racism and antisemitism, gathered near the Arc de Triomphe and also spoke out against the gala and Smotrich. That split response illustrates how the same event can generate opposition from different political and community perspectives for different reasons.
The French Foreign Ministry had already criticised Smotrich's comments about Israeli annexation of the West Bank, calling them contrary to international law and counterproductive to efforts to reduce regional tension. The ministry reiterated support for a two-state solution. Those diplomatic statements mattered because the protests were not taking place in a vacuum: they were unfolding amid wider unease in Europe after violence in Amsterdam and visible pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Paris around a Champions League match involving an Israeli club. In other words, the gala became one more node in a much larger argument over the war, occupation, protest and public order.
For police, the question was how to protect the city's streets while allowing a controversial event to proceed without incident. More than 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff were being deployed for the football match that followed, a sign of how alert authorities were to possible spillover. That kind of security footprint underlines why Paris treated the gala as politically sensitive even while saying it did not amount to a public-order emergency. The city was trying to manage a symbolic fight that had already crossed from an event hall into the street.
What the night ultimately showed was that a fundraiser can become a flashpoint when it intersects with the war in Gaza, Israeli cabinet politics and French domestic debate. Supporters of the gala saw a charitable or political gathering; opponents saw an attempt to normalise a far-right agenda under the banner of solidarity with Israel. The gap between those readings is what made the protest so intense, and why it could attract both street anger and official caution at the same time.
