France to contribute officers to World Cup security in Qatar amid calls for boycott

The month-long football extravaganza, which opens in Doha on November 20, made headlines in France this week as Paris and other large cities announced they would not erect the customary giant screens to broadcast the matches in protest at the tournament’s environmental impact and the widely documented rights violations during Qatar’s preparations for the event. 

As talk of a boycott gathered momentum, the French interior ministry quietly acknowledged it was sending “about 220” gendarmes and police officers to Qatar to help secure the tournament, confirming a report on Wednesday by the investigative satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné. 

The announcement was distinctly low-key for a country accustomed to playing up its “crowd-management” expertise. And it came just months after that expertise came under question when images emerged of French police teargassing and pepper-spraying whole families – including children – amid chaotic scenes at the Champions League football final near Paris in May, prompting an apology from UEFA. 

As the popular football magazine So Foot quipped, “Did anyone think to show the Qataris footage of the Champions League final?” 

The deployment of French forces to Qatar falls under a security partnership that was signed last year and spirited through the French parliament on August 4 following heated debates in the National Assembly.   

Sponsors of the agreement described it as a much-needed vote of confidence in French police following the fiasco of the Champions League final in May. They pointed to the strategic and financial benefits of France’s burgeoning relationship with the gas-rich Gulf state, which spent €11.1 billion on French armaments between 2011 and 2020.  

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