Police in Strasbourg have banned the flying of Israeli flags ahead of Maccabi Haifa's first round qualifying match in the Europa League soccer championship against RC Strasbourg Alsace tonight at the 29,000-seat Stade de la Meinau stadium, where the number of Haifa fans has been limited to 600.
Aliza Bin-Noun, Israel's ambassador to France, has protested the instruction, noting that speeches calling for a boycott of Israel have been allowed for the sake of freedom of speech. Yisrael Hayom reported, Thursday morning, that local residents attacked three Haifa fans as soon as they found out they were Israeli even though they had no outside signs of being Haifa fans or Israelis.