Francesco and Martin, 22 years old, wave a Palestinian flag at the door of the historic headquarters of the Sciencespo faculty, in the center of Paris. takes all day blocked by trash cans, fences, bicycles or wooden pallets. They are covered with masks so that their faces cannot be seen and they chant slogans in support of Gaza. “We are covered for safety for fear of disciplinary sanctions, or of being identified by the extreme right,” explains Francesco (not his real name).
Several young people appear at the windows of the building with their hair covered by Palestinian scarves and also with their faces covered. They carry brochures where it appears crossed out the word “war” and below it reads “genocide”, “We ask for justice, we wait for the police” or “police everywhere, justice nowhere.” “There is always a repressive response when we want to denounce the massacre that is happening in Gaza,” explains Marie, a young woman with a Palestinian scarf around her neck.
Like Marie, Francesco or Martin, almost a hundred students (according to their calculations) have barricaded themselves in this headquarters of the university center, historical and symbolic for its combative character, to protest “the genocide in Gaza” and in solidarity with the students demonstrating at US universities. There are students who have spent the night inside the building and two days ago the police evacuated a group in another building on campus, which has several locations.
“We are going to continue here as long as it takes. It will be the management of the center or the police who decide if we are going to not“, explains Martin. “Some of the colleagues who demonstrate have had disciplinary sanctions, and others have been threatened. That’s why we all go covered, because that’s how we are protected,” explains the young man. His friend Francesco adds: “We want the French university to mobilize, from the Sorbonne to Nanterre.” This is an international fight“, dice.
Yassine, also in front of the headquarters, denounces: “This is something that is going to spread. There is repression against everything that has to do with a political expression about Palestine and that is disturbing,” he says. “Sciencespo is a faculty that knows history well, it is not a militant protest. Here people who protest against a genocide are criminalized while those who kill are presented as victims. These students are bullied“It’s something never seen in democracy,” the man denounces.
The students of the Columbia Universityin USAThey carry days occupying the campus in protest against war in Gaza and the movement has extended by American universities, some of them the most prestigious such as Harvard, Yale o Princeton. The student movement in France is combative and draws on the heritage of May 68.
The management of the center has decided to close the other locations and is going to meet with the students, who are demanding that the sanctions be lifted for penalized students, that the center condemn Israel’s attacks in Gaza, that a space be created “for debate where “what is happening can be analyzed, not in a militant way, but in a historical and technical way” and that the collaborations that Sciencespo has with Israeli universities be investigated.
The protest has already made the political class react. The Minister of Higher Education Sylvie Retailleau, ha dicho: “Debate yes, blockade no”. At the rally this Friday there were some deputies from France Insoumise, a far-left party that has been demonstrating in favor of Palestine since the attacks of October 7. “You are the honor of this country,” said its leader, Jean Luc Mlenchon.