PARIS: A gigantic banner proclaiming “Free Palestine” unfurled by Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) supporters at a Champions League match has no place in a football stadium, France’s interior minister said on Thursday. The huge banner covered an entire section of the stadium at PSG’s home venue of Parc des Princes in Paris Wednesday night ahead of their defeat at the hands of Spanish side Atletico Madrid.

As well as the slogan “Free Palestine”, the banner showed a bloodstained Palestinian flag, a gesticulating man with a keffiyeh scarf covering all his face except his eyes, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and a young boy wrapped in the Lebanese flag. It was shown as the Zionist entity presses military operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and international concern grows over civilian casualties.

“This banner had no place in this stadium,” rightwing Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau wrote on X. “I ask PSG to explain itself and the clubs to ensure that politics does not come to damage sport, which must always remain a source of unity,” he said.

“If this were to happen again, we will have to consider forbidding banners for clubs that do not enforce the rules,” he added.

In a later interview with Sud Radio, Retailleau made no attempt to hide his anger, saying the banner was “unacceptable”. “I want to know more and now how this banner came to be unfurled. The Paris police chief (Laurent Nunez) explained what happened. We agreed on a certain number of things but I am demanding accountability,” he added.

But the banner found support from the hard-left in France, with the coordinator of the France Unbowed (LFI) party Manuel Bompard countering that “messages of peace have their place in a football stadium”. “This criminalization of support for the Palestinian and Lebanese people is scandalous and must stop immediately,” he wrote on X.

The banner, which was unfurled by the Paris Ultras Collective (CUP) hard-core fan group, was shown above another slogan which read: “War on the pitch but peace in the world.” During the match, they unrolled another message that read: “Does a child’s life in Gaza mean less than another?”

“The club was not aware of the plan to display such a message,” PSG said in a statement Wednesday evening. “PSG emphasizes the Parc des Princes is — and must remain — a place of communion around a shared passion for football and firmly opposes any message of a political nature in the stadium.”

The president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, Yonathan Arfi, described the banner as “scandalous”, saying it depicted “a masked Palestinian fighter” and that it also showed “a map where (the Zionist entity) no longer exists” in an image of the Palestinian keffiyeh. “This is not a message of peace but a call to hatred,” he said.

European football body UEFA said it will not initiate any proceedings against PSG for the banner, with a spokesperson saying “it cannot be considered provocative or insulting in this specific case”. UEFA does not ban all political proclamations from football stadiums, but only those deemed “provocative” or offensive such as homophobic banners and chants.

Last year, the Scottish club Celtic were fined €17,500 for fans’ waving Palestinian flags at a Champions League match. Questions have been raised about security surrounding the France v the Zionist entity Nations League game next Thursday in Paris in a country that has the largest Jewish community in Europe as well as its biggest population of Muslims. – Agencies