From Columbia University in the United States, to Science Po, the faculty of presidents, prime ministers and ministers in France. The pro-Palestinian student movement spreads and has arrived in Paris.
Around fifty students camped inside the famous school on the night of Thursday, April 25 to Friday, April 26 in support of the Palestinians. They were joined by other students and denounced the massacre of Israeli civilians in Gaza.
A few dozen students mobilized in favor of the Palestinians decided to occupy a new building at Sciences Po Paris on Thursday afternoon. Exactly one day after an evacuation by the police of another part of the establishment, as a result of the actions carried out at American universities.
After the doors of the historic building of the establishment, located on Saint-Guillaume Street, in the French capital, closed at 9 p.m., there were about 80 students in the street, cheering and bringing pillows and food to their classmates, who They remained inside. The occupation was decided in a general assembly.
“Even if Sciences Po doesn’t want to, we are here for the honor of Palestine and all those who are being murdered,” chanted the students, gathered peacefully in front of the headquarters of the prestigious school.
In this building there would probably be between 50 and 70 students present, according to young activists or supporters of the Palestine Sciences Po committee.
The claims
The committee requests in particular “the clear condemnation of Israel’s actions by Sciences Po” and “the end of collaborations”, with all “institutions or entities” complicit “in the systemic oppression of the Palestinian people.” It also calls for an end to “the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus” .
This Friday the students were still present at the scene. About twenty people were outside and a dozen more inside the establishment.
The entrance doors to the building are locked. There are no classes for the day. At 8:30 in the morning the police were not present.
In the last few hours we have heard the first political reactions. The opponent Jean-Luc Mélenchon spoke to “send you the most grateful greeting and admiration for the work you have done in occupying the premises and then this morning, when we met.”
“You are at this moment, for us, the honor of our country. Of course, you will be subjected to all kinds of pressures and brutalities. But I am sure that you will resist and that in doing so, you will encourage other consciences, other actions to get moving ”, stressed the leader of Francia Insumisa.
Rima Hassan, candidate for the European elections on the Popular Union with Rebellious France and French Palestinian list, had planned to meet with the students.
Another busy campus
On Wednesday afternoon, about sixty students committed to the Palestinian cause occupied the open-air amphitheater of a school campus in District 7.
“After discussions with Sciences Po management, the majority agreed to leave the site” overnight. But “a small group of students refused and it was decided that the police would evacuate the place,” he said Wednesday morning. the address of the establishment, in a message to AFP.
“It regrets that the numerous attempts at dialogue to have them leave the place peacefully have not allowed us to find another way out of this situation,” they said.
A dozen tents were set up on Wednesday afternoon in the courtyard of this campus.
When the police arrived, “50 students left the place on their own, 70 were evacuated peacefully starting at 12:20 p.m.,” according to the police headquarters, which did not report “any incident.”
Other universities are mobilizing at this time, in an indication that the movement is spreading.
This mobilization was organized by the Palestinian Political Science Committee. It took place while several American universities are mobilized by the conflict in Gaza.
According to the Palestinian Po Science Committee, its activists were “taken out of the school by more than fifty members of the police” and “around a hundred” police officers “were also waiting for them outside.”
United from Paris to New York
“There is a double degree between Science Po and Columbia (in New York). So we have colleagues there and the students communicate with each other,” explained Hicham, a member of the Sciences Po Palestinian Committee. “We are on the same line as these universities around the world,” he added.
On Thursday, between 150 and 200 students, in particular from Paris 1 University, demonstrated at the Place du Panthéon to protest against the arrival of President Emmanuel Macron for a speech on the European Union at the Sorbonne. “Israel the murderer, Macron the accomplice,” they sang.
“We refuse to allow Macron to come quietly to the Sorbonne, at a time when there is a genocide in Palestine,” Lorélia Fréjo, of the student organization Le Poing Levé, told AFP.
The president of the Crif (Council of Jewish Institutions of France), Yonathan Arfi, estimated this Friday at LCI that this movement was “dangerous because the university has a symbolic function in our societies.”
“It’s nothing massive.” But “it works, holding the entire campus hostage, impeding academic freedom and imposing a climate of intellectual terror on some Jewish students,” he lamented.