Protesters disrupt an Israeli Philharmonic concert in Paris. 4 people are detained

PARIS — Protesters repeatedly disrupted a concert by the Israel Philharmonic orchestra in Paris, brandishing flares and sounding alarms that caused brief panic in the crowd and led musicians to leave the stage. Authorities said four people were detained.

Pro-Palestinian activists also demonstrated outside Thursday night’s performance at the Paris Philharmonic concert hall, the latest example of tensions over the war in Gaza spilling over into protests in Europe.

The French government decried the orchestra disruption as antisemitic and an attack on freedom of cultural expression.

Inside the concert hall, witnesses described a performance punctuated by eruptions of chaos, and solidarity in the audience for the musicians trying to finish the show.

’’Every 10 to 20 minutes someone tried to ruin the concert,″ Israeli Embassy in Paris official Osnat Menache, who attended the event, told The Associated Press.

Several minutes into the concert, strong sound alarms went off and the orchestra stopped and left the stage, she said.

One protester cried ’’Israel Assassin,″ said Jonathan Arfi, president of France’s national Jewish organization CRIF.

Later came the flares.

’’The first flare - the person was holding it and he moved very fast in between the people,″ Menache said. At one point it fell on a chair very close to the orchestra, Menache said.

Video from inside shows concertgoers standing up, some recoiling and some trying to subdue the protesters as red smoke and shouts fill the venue.

The musicians eventually returned to the stage to finish the concert.

Four people were detained, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said in a post on X. He denounced the disruptions, saying ″nothing can justify them.″

A group of pro-Palestinian musicians and supporters issued an appeal last month to the director of the Paris Philharmonic to cancel the concert, saying, ’’To maintain this concert would be to contribute to Israel’s impunity before international law; to instrumentalize classical music ... in the whitewashing of policies that for 75 years have denied the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.″

The group said it maintained its appeal despite the recent ceasefire because the truce doesn’t address historic problems.

Arfi called the orchestra disruption ″a way to kidnap culture and arts in order to use it to send violent messages inside French society.″

Menache said the French government is taking incidents like the orchestra disruption seriously.

’’I felt very bad for the orchestra,″ she said. ″Every antisemitic act should be brought to justice."

___

Alex Turnbull and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed.

Jeffrey Schaeffer, The Associated Press