Still no agreement between the management of Sciences Po Paris and the students mobilized for Gaza. Thursday May 2, the result of an agreement between the administration and the students, an internal discussion on the situation in the Middle East was organized within the Institute of Political Studies. A debate deemed “disappointing, but not surprising” by the students of Sciences Po’s Palestine committee, who announced Thursday afternoon the launch of a “peaceful sit-in” in the school hall and the start of a hunger strike by six students “in solidarity with the Palestinian victims”.
Thursday evening, the occupation of the campus was voted on by around a hundred students gathered in a general assembly. The management of Sciences Po Paris therefore decided to close its main premises on Friday May 3, at a time when the government is increasing its vigilance regarding actions on French campuses. “Following the student occupation vote, the buildings at 25, 27, 30, rue Saint-Guillaume and 56, rue des Saints-Pères, will remain closed tomorrow, Friday May 3. We invite you to remain teleworking,” indicates a message to employees, sent Thursday evening by the Human Resources department of Sciences Po.
The hunger strikes will continue until “an official, non-anonymous vote is held on the board of the Institute for the Investigation of Partnerships with Israeli Universities,” said Hicham, of the Palestine committee. After a mobilization marred by tensions at the end of last week at Sciences Po, the movement was suspended after the management’s agreement to organize an internal debate – described as “townhall”, a term used in the United States for a large public meeting .
“It was a tough debate, with fairly clear positions, a lot of emotion,” said Jean Bassères, the provisional administrator of Sciences Po, which welcomes some 2,000 students to Paris according to the school’s website. . He called for “calm” before the start of exams on Monday. Jean Bassères also indicated that he had “taken fairly firm positions on certain subjects”, refusing “very clearly the creation of a working group which was proposed by certain students to investigate our relations with Israeli universities”. He called for “everyone’s responsibility”, in a context of several actions in France, echoing the mobilization of campuses in the United States where the police were deployed on several sites.
A camp evicted in front of the Sorbonne
Not far from Sciences Po, in front of the Sorbonne, where the police had already intervened on Monday to evacuate demonstrators, nearly 300 students from different campuses gathered Thursday afternoon and organized a camp of around twenty tents. They were dislodged an hour later by more than a hundred members of the police, according to an AFP journalist.
The Minister of Higher Education Sylvie Retailleau asked university presidents on Thursday morning to ensure the “maintenance of public order”, using “the fullest extent of the powers” at their disposal, during a videoconference intervention at the board of directors of France Universités. France Universités, which brings together 116 higher education establishments including 74 universities, “welcomed the determination of the minister to take a balanced and firm path for a return to calm”.
The Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) is organizing a “dialogue table” on Friday at Place de la Sorbonne, to “debate with Jewish students”, “fight against the polarization of the debate” and “show that we can mobilize without insulting and inveighing”. Actions have multiplied in recent days in France, mainly on the Sciences Po sites in Paris and in the regions, and in some universities, in an electric political context, La France insoumise being notably accused by the right of “instrumentalization ” movement.
Mobilizations in Lille, Lyon and Saint-Etienne
The Jourdan campus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) was blocked by students on Thursday. In Lille, the Institute of Political Studies was closed on Thursday and access to the Higher School of Journalism (ESJ) blocked.
At Sciences Po Lyon, “around a hundred” people occupied an amphitheater on Thursday evening, a representative of the Unef student union told AFP. The head of the LFI deputies Mathilde Panot came to “give them her support” at the end of the evening after a meeting in Vénissieux, she indicated on she added.
In Saint-Etienne, a handful of students blocked access to a university site on Thursday morning, before being evacuated by the police.