NFL Says Steelers-Saints Game in Paris Remains On Schedule Despite Protests in France

PARIS · MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2026

The NFL's first regular-season game in France is still on. The league said Sunday that the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints will play as scheduled at Stade de France next Sunday, October 25, even as a weekend of nationwide protests in France — over rising living costs and proposed education spending cuts — brought enormous crowds into the streets, tear gas and water cannon in Paris, and more than a thousand arrests across the country.

“Preparations continue as scheduled for NFL events and the game at Stade de France next Sunday,” the NFL said in a statement on Sunday, October 18, reported by the Associated Press via Sportsnet. “We continue to work closely with local authorities and partners on all operational and security matters. We are also providing the two clubs with regular updates. There's been no disruption or impact at league sites.” It is the clearest possible answer to the question that had hung over the fixture since the unrest escalated: as of Monday morning, the Paris game is happening.

The game itself is a landmark. Kickoff is set for 9:30 a.m. ET — 2:30 p.m. local time in Paris — at Stade de France in Saint-Denis, just north of the capital. New Orleans is the designated home team and Pittsburgh the visitor in what will be the first NFL regular-season game ever played on French soil, and the sixth of the league's nine international games in the 2026 season. A first game in a new country is the kind of week the league plans years in advance, which is part of why the scenes elsewhere in France this weekend drew such immediate scrutiny.

The Saints are in, and already moving

The Saints matched the league's message within hours. “We concur with the NFL's statement and are planning to play the game,” the club told Front Office Sports. According to ESPN's reporting via Saints Wire, New Orleans is receiving daily security updates, already has staff on the ground in France, and has seen no disruption at its team sites. The Saints' travel schedule underlines how quickly a normal game week becomes a transatlantic operation: the team travels Sunday night and arrives in France early Monday, a full week before kickoff. The Steelers, by contrast, arrive Friday — the later arrival the club has preferred for international trips — and declined to comment beyond the league's statement.

Sunday's statement was also the league's second in five days, a cadence that tells its own story. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy first addressed the France situation on Wednesday, as the protests were building. Leagues do not usually confirm the same game twice in one week; that the NFL did so reflects both the scale of the unrest and how central the Paris debut is to its international calendar. The message in both statements has not changed: operations are proceeding, security planning is active and coordinated with local authorities, and the clubs are being kept informed.

Why the question came up at all

The backdrop is a country in open argument with its government. France was swept on Saturday by nationwide protests driven by rising living costs and proposed education spending cuts, and parts of the day turned violent. The BBC reported that about 550,000 people protested on Saturday, with at least 1,200 arrests. Paris police said 855 people were arrested in the capital region, according to the Associated Press via Sportsnet, and officers used tear gas and water cannon in Paris. Crowds gathered again on Sunday at Place de la République, one of the capital's traditional protest sites.

President Emmanuel Macron has publicly acknowledged the public's “anger” and spoken of “shame” over the rioting and looting that accompanied parts of the demonstrations, the AP reported. The political fight is continuing in parallel with the football: Previously has covered Macron's rejection of his interior minister's resignation amid the unrest, and the protests themselves are a separate, ongoing story from the game. What matters for Sunday's fixture, on the league's account, is narrower: whether team sites, travel routes and the stadium operation are affected — and on that, the NFL's answer is that nothing has been disrupted.

A game week unlike any other

Both teams come into Paris week straight off wins, and straight off the field. On Sunday, the Steelers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 26-19 in overtime, while the Saints beat the New York Giants 34-27. For New Orleans, the turnaround is immediate: win on Sunday, fly across the Atlantic on Sunday night, and begin a game week in a country where the club is the designated home team for a historic first. For Pittsburgh, the week is shorter in France but no simpler — a Friday arrival leaves little margin for anything to slip, which is precisely why the league's insistence on daily updates and on-the-ground coordination matters.

The security posture described by the league and the Saints is, notably, a routine one rather than an emergency one. Daily updates to the clubs, staff already in place in France, league sites operating without disruption, and planning handled jointly with local authorities and partners: that is the language of an international game week proceeding on its normal rails, not of a fixture being held together. Neither club has announced any change to its schedule, and no league event in France has been moved, shortened or cancelled.

What happens next is a week of watching the details rather than the headlines. The Saints' arrival early Monday, Pittsburgh's on Friday, and the build-out at Stade de France will all proceed in public view, and any change in the league's position would have to come from the league itself. For now, the first NFL regular-season game in France — years in the making, and suddenly played against the loudest possible backdrop — kicks off at 2:30 p.m. Paris time on Sunday. The plan, all week and again on Sunday, has not changed.