Will the movement spread more massively in France? Initiated for several weeks in the United States, the pro-Palestinian student mobilization is gaining ground, little by little for the moment, in French schools and universities.
In Paris, while the Sciences-Po management thought it would calm things down by organizing a major debate on Thursday, the management decided to close its main premises on Friday due to a new occupation by a few dozen students mobilized for Gaza. Thursday afternoon, a “peaceful sit-in” had already taken place in the school hall while six students even started a hunger strike “in solidarity with the Palestinian victims”.
Support from Mathilde Panot
At Science-Po Lyon, this time, a blockade started Thursday evening is still in progress this Friday. According to images broadcast on social networks, several dozen young people sat in an amphitheater, chanting slogans of support for the population of Gaza, with the support of LFI MP Mathilde Panot who came to visit them in the evening .
In Lille, the Institute of Political Studies was closed on Thursday as were access to the Higher School of Journalism (ESJ) which was being evacuated by the police this Friday morning.
It must be said that the Minister of Higher Education Sylvie Retailleau asked university presidents on Thursday to ensure the “maintenance of public order”, using “the fullest extent of the powers” at their disposal, in particular in terms of disciplinary sanctions in the event of disturbances or recourse to the police.
New calls to demonstrate
Not enough to discourage some demonstrators. This Friday, in Paris, a gathering of students mobilized “for the Palestinian people” is for example planned at Place du Panthéon, at 2 p.m., with the slogan “No to repression and the closure of universities”. A new demonstration is also planned in Grenoble, with a start in front of the university library from 12 p.m. The mobilized students are demanding in particular “the termination of partnerships with Israeli universities”.
A response perhaps to the Student Union which, Thursday evening in a press release, renewed its call for student mobilization “to put pressure on universities and the government so that real actions in favor of peace are undertaken”.
On Thursday, the police intervened in front of the Sorbonne to dislodge some 300 demonstrators who had come from different campuses to set up a tent camp, which had become the symbol of mobilization in the United States. The Jourdan campus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) was blocked by students on Thursday.
In Switzerland, a building at the University of Lausanne was also the scene of a pro-Palestinian mobilization on Thursday. Around a hundred students carrying flags occupied the hall in order to follow “the example of mobilizations on campuses in Canada, the United States and France”, explained the organizers.