When the Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints meet on Sunday in the NFL's first regular-season game hosted in Paris, they will do so with an intense civil unrest as the backdrop. Protests in the French capital will not impact the NFL Week 7 game, but they did lead to the cancellation of a fan event. The Steelers announced on Thursday that they will not hold the scheduled Steelers House gathering due to the protests.
The event was scheduled to unfold over the weekend near the Bastille. There is an authorized march scheduled to begin at Place de la Bastille on Saturday.
Sunday's game, meanwhile, will unfold at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, which is located just under six miles from the center of Paris and away from the scheduled demonstrations.
"Following recent events in the Bastille neighborhood, and after careful consideration, we felt it appropriate not to move forward with the planned Steelers House fan event in Paris," the Steelers said in a statement. "Preparations for Sunday's NFL Paris game at State de France continue as planned, with the NFL working closely with local authorities and partners on all operational and security matters."
There have thus far been no disruptions at NFL sites in the lead-up to Sunday's contest. While concerns over fan and player safety heightened over the last two weeks, the league insisted repeatedly that the game would go on as planned. The NFL first addressed the concerns on Oct. 14 when it stated it looks forward to welcoming fans to Paris later this month.
One measure the NFL will enact, though, is an increase in security. NFL executive vice president of club business, international and league events, Peter O'Reilly, said this week that the security presence "will be heightened" as the league works in tandem with local authorities and the U.S. State Department. He said the NFL has had people in Paris since early October and that they are "being very vigilant in everything we do, in all of our planning on an hour-by-hour basis."
Former NFL Security Committee member and current CBS Sports analyst Amy Trask said that while teams handle international travel differently from one another, they share similar rules with regard to curfews and activities outside of game day. Trask also detailed the role security plays in these overseas competitions.
"You've got security on site the moment people are approaching the venue," Trask said. "In other words, the security is not simply at the gate when people are entering the venue. There is security well outside of the venue. There is security before you even enter the parking lot, so there will be security throughout the area. Some of the security will be noticeable, recognizable. Some of the security will be undercover, meaning simply not in uniform, not dressed in a manner where you will immediately notice it is security. It was my experience that there is ample security at the NFL events.
"... As I noted, when the games are in the United States, that's local security, municipal security, state security, national security. Now you will add to this Parisian security, French security as well."
The protests have been ongoing for nearly a month and stem from discontent over the French school system and the nation's cost of living. Protesters, many of them students, called upon the government to address under-resourced schools, poor conditions and teacher shortages. They report, in some cases, that the schools are physically falling apart with crumbling ceilings, water in the walls and rats in the buildings.
Some protests have turned violent. Police arrested thousands of people in connection to the demonstrations and utilized tear gas, stun grenades and other crowd-control measures to address those protests that devolved from peaceful gatherings into riots, according to CBS News.
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