After Sciences Po Paris, pro-Palestinian student mobilizations are spreading to other campuses and universities. Evacuation operations were carried out in the face of the blockages, but did not deter the student activists.
Blockades and other mobilizations of pro-Palestinian students continue at Sciences Po Paris. A new occupation voted by the Palestine Sciences Po Committee began on the evening of Thursday May 2 and as a result the management of the establishment announced the closure of several of its Parisian campuses for the day of Friday May 3. But at midday, a police intervention was launched to try to evacuate the students who continued to resist, chanting slogans: “we stay here, we will not move” or “we demand justice, we are sent the police”.
The same scenario took place at Sciences Po Lyon this Friday, May 3. After a night of occupation of the premises by around a hundred pro-Palestinian students, the police carried out an evacuation operation. In Lille, the Higher School of Journalism (ESJ) is closed due to the blockage of certain students. On site, no evacuation but clashes between young activists and the police stationed around the establishment and Sciences Po Lille.
“The firmness is and will remain total,” assured Matignon on the sidelines of the evacuations on several campuses. “Regarding the situation in establishments, some were able to be resolved through dialogue. For others, requisitions by university presidents were made and the police intervened immediately. This firmness is paying off : 23 disturbed sites were evacuated yesterday”, added Gabriel Attal’s office, justifying the intervention of the police.
A large gathering at the Pantheon this Friday
But more than a week after the first student mobilizations in support of Palestine, the mobilized unions say they are ready to make the movement sustainable. After the blockades, a hunger strike was started by at least six students who say they refuse to eat, out of “solidarity with the Palestinian victims”, until the management of the establishment “commits to creation of a working group and the publication of a report on academic and economic partnerships vis-à-vis violations of international law and human rights in Palestine” informed the Palestine Sciences Po Committee. Some, like Unef or the Student Union, have been calling for “intensifying mobilization in places of study” since yesterday. The same students are planning a large gathering on the Place du Panthéon this Friday at 2 p.m.
Other campuses occupied by handfuls of students
Pro-Palestinian mobilizations have spread to other Sciences Po campuses, including those outside Paris. In Lille, the political studies institute closed its doors on Thursday May 2 due to the occupation of the premises by students. On Thursday evening other blockages took place at Sciences Po Lyon, where dozens of people occupied an amphitheater, and in Saint-Etienne where the students present were evacuated.
Other establishments than those of Sciences Po are also affected by the movement: the Sorbonne or the Ecole nationale supérieure (ENS) in Paris or the Ecole supérieure de journalism (ESJ) in Lille. The journalism school is also closed this Friday, May 2 while around fifty people have been mobilized in front of the premises since dawn according to France Blue North. A demonstration is also organized near Sciences Po Lille without this leading to the closure of the campus. Another demonstration is planned for midday near Sciences Po Grenoble.
A dialogue but no agreement
After a lull allowed by the organization of an internal debate at Sciences Po, the pro-Palestinian mobilization resumes and gains strength. “It was a tough debate, with fairly clear positions, a lot of emotion,” said Jean Bassères, the provisional administrator of Sciences-po. But the big meeting produced nothing, the administrator having “very clearly” refused “the creation of a working group which was proposed by certain students to investigate our relations with Israeli universities”, one of the demands of the mobilized students . Jean Bassères, at the end of the meeting and faced with the resumption of the movement, called for “calm” before the start of the exams which are to take place on Monday.
After the failure of exchanges between the management of Sciences Po and the students, the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) went Thursday evening to face the blockage at Sciences-Po and the Sorbonne to “call for dialogue and denounce the anti-Semitic excesses of pro-Palestinian mobilizations”.